Madness Redux
by MagicSwede1965
Summary: The group targeting Christian and Leslie follows them to Fantasy Island. Follows 'Once and Future Prince'.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** _The final installment of this story arc. I'm very glad to see that you've been enjoying this tale and I hope the conclusion will be up to the setup! Thanks as ever to PDXWiz, jtbwriter, Harry2, Bishop T and all other readers and reviewers. _

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§ § § -- September 19, 2004

The talk show was almost over, and Leslie was somewhat relieved. Even the presence of bodyguards from Gerhard's friend's security company hadn't completely convinced her that they were safe. She had tried at dinner the previous evening to back out of bringing the triplets and appearing with them on the program; and when Christian had loyally, if a touch reluctantly, told his family that he wouldn't appear if she didn't, Carl Johan and Anna-Laura had spent some fifteen minutes talking Leslie back into it. Gerhard had chimed in with his complete trust in his friend's employees; and Margareta had said, blunt as ever, that it was ridiculous for her to go around scared for the rest of her life.

Finally Christian had turned to Leslie and said, "Listen, my Rose, I know you're not going to believe this…but I'd actually like to appear on that show."

She had stared at him in astonishment. "Why?"

"To get the people's help," he'd said. "If those maniacs who tried to disrupt the ceremony this afternoon are still on the loose, perhaps we can ask that people watch for them and report any sightings to the police."

"It makes sense, Leslie," Michiko had said. "From all I've ever heard, the population here is crazy about Christian, and by extension, you and the triplets. If they think there's any threat to any of you, they'll do all they can to prevent it."

Leslie had finally acceded to their wishes, but it hadn't dispelled her misgivings. She had asked Christian apprehensively if there was any need for her to answer questions, and he had told her that if she was asked any, the questions and her answers would be in English and subtitled in _jordiska_ for the viewers. "You've gone paranoid, my Leslie Rose," he had told her with gentle reproval, holding up her chin with an index finger. "If you do that, you'll be letting those mystery assailants win. There are far more people with you than against you, you know. Give them a chance to help, and for fate's sake, don't let your nervousness show. In any case, we leave for Fantasy Island tomorrow, so stay calm."

That had been shortly before the live program had gone on the air, and Christian had been right; she'd been asked only a few questions, all of them in English. Otherwise, she just sat with Karina and Susanna on her lap, with Christian beside her holding Tobias on his; the babies were dressed in the outfits they had worn at the re-crowning ceremony the day before. They had been remarkably cooperative thus far; Leslie suspected it was due to their fascination with all the stage lights. Every time she looked at one of the babies, their eyes would be fixed on some bright light somewhere.

At last the interviewer wrapped up the program and the audience began to applaud; the host took a few minutes to admire the triplets and to pretend to shake each baby's hand by letting them grab his finger, then gently pumping up and down. The director signaled that they were off the air, and the clapping died down; then an announcement, which Christian translated for Leslie, was made to the audience. "They're going to have people line up now so that everyone can have a chance to see the babies up close," he said, "and I suspect they'll say something at least to me, perhaps also to you, depending on whether they can speak English."

"What if one of those maniacs is in the audience?" Leslie finally voiced the fear that had been nagging at her throughout the show.

"Even if they are, they won't be able to do anything," Christian said. "Everyone who attended today has been screened for weapons, and I'm told nothing was found. And if one of them came in without weapons, he still wouldn't get far—too many people would be around to stop him. Leslie, enough is enough, all right?"

She realized he was beginning to lose patience, and bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she said and looked away. "It's only…as long as we're still here, I'm scared."

Christian turned her head back to face him. "We'll talk about it later," he said. "Right now, you need to put on a mask; it's one of the little tricks you'll have to master now that you're a public figure. Lose some of that suspicion, be gracious…and for fate's sake, smile!"

"I'll take Susanna for you, Leslie," Amalia offered, lifting Susanna from Leslie's lap even as she spoke. Christian stood up, and Leslie sighed to herself, following his example. She could only hope she'd feel better once they were in the air and on their way home. The previous day's incident had scared her, in a way she hadn't been afraid since the last time she and Roarke had faced Mephistopheles. She quirked her mouth to herself. _Too bad Mephistopheles hasn't taken the benighted souls of whoever was in on yesterday's plot!_

Joining Christian, Carl Johan, Amalia and Anna-Laura at the front of the stage, where a low wall separated it from the audience-seating area, she plastered a smile on her face and hoped it looked genuine enough to fool the people. As it happened, the triplets were the real attraction; and while people congratulated Christian and Leslie, they focused mainly on the babies. After a little while Leslie's spirits began to lift of their own accord, for the things people did in an attempt to get the babies to smile were sometimes hilarious.

Once their limo had gotten on the road for the trip back to the castle, Amalia let out a laugh that she must have wanted to release for some time. "People are so funny!" she said mirthfully. "Did you see the faces some folks made, trying to make one of the triplets smile at them? I was afraid I would burst sometimes."

"I think my favorite was the one who stuck his thumbs in his ears, waggled his fingers and crossed his eyes at Tobias," Leslie remarked, and at that they all laughed.

"That would have made a program in and of itself," Carl Johan agreed, chuckling. "It's still true—no matter where babies go, they always steal the show."

"You seemed nervous during the program, Leslie," said Anna-Laura. "Are you all right now? It looked as if you finally relaxed when people were coming up to see the babies."

"It was…just nerves from being on live TV," Leslie said lamely. That got her a sharp look from Christian, but he didn't say anything.

At the castle Carl Johan caught him long enough to ask him a couple of questions, allowing Leslie to go ahead to the suite and put the sleepy girls in their cribs. She'd just started changing into jeans and a sweater when Christian came in. "Well, I'll admit to being glad that's over," he said, crossing the room to put Tobias down for his nap.

"Mmm," Leslie mumbled, tugging her sweater over her head.

He was silent; when her head finally emerged from the sweater she blinked to find him standing right in front of her, watching her, his face solemn. She sighed deeply. "Okay, go ahead and scold me, now that we've gotten through it and no one molested us, and there's no one around to stop you from calling me on the carpet."

Christian sighed in his turn, rolling his eyes simultaneously. "Leslie, there's such a thing as being too careful," he said. "All precautions that could be taken were taken. Now that one thing has happened, you're expecting something equally bad, or perhaps worse, around every corner. You can't live like that!"

"That's funny that it's coming from you," Leslie said, feeling slightly betrayed. "You're always the one who wants to avoid publicity, after all."

"Leslie, there's a fine line between reluctance and paranoia," said Christian, "and I think you've crossed it. It's one thing to be publicity-shy; it's another to actively suspect everyone you meet of something criminal. I was going to suggest that we take that museum tour we missed last week, but I don't expect I should bother. You'll probably refuse on the grounds that that's where our would-be assailants are hiding." He turned away to change his own clothes, and for a moment Leslie stared at him.

"Yeah," she finally said flatly, "I guess you're right. I'm just an overprotective mother who never wants to leave my house again, or let my children out of my sight, till they turn twenty-one. I'll be a terrified hermit for the rest of my life, all right. You certainly have me pegged. Enjoy your tour, since you're so sure I don't want to go."

Christian's sigh this time was clearly one of exasperation. "What other conclusion do you expect me to draw, after your sudden terror in the wake of that incident?"

"My God…you really do think I'm that paranoid!" Leslie exclaimed. Her disbelieving annoyance began to boil into outright anger. "Thanks a lot, Christian!" She strode from the room and swiftly climbed the stairs, taking advantage of his half-clothed condition to make her escape. The landings between floors connected the flights of stairs from both the east and west corridors, so that she was able to run into the east-corridor stairway and back to the first floor. It was her hope to find the castle library; she remembered having seen it only once before, on her first visit to the castle just before Arnulf's death, when Christian had taken her on an abbreviated tour of the north wing.

In the east corridor she encountered a few servants and decided to take the chance that perhaps at least one of them spoke English. "Excuse me…where's the library?"

Most of them stared blankly, though they did bow or curtsy to her; but one girl, whom Leslie recognized as the page who had held the pillow with the pins the day before, smiled. "I will show you, Your Highness," she said. "Please follow me." She led Leslie down the hallway, past what Leslie knew to be the sitting room and then three or four other doors before pausing in front of the next. "It is here, Your Highness. May I assist you to find something inside?"

"Oh, no, thank you," Leslie said, "I just want to look around awhile." The page curtsied, smiled again and left her, and Leslie slipped through the door, taking care to close it behind her. Then she turned, and her mouth dropped open in amazement. The library was simply enormous—almost as big as Fantasy Island's public library in Amberville. The room stretched out in both directions, outfitted from floor to ceiling with bookcases on all four walls. As far as she could see, all the shelves bore at least some books, and many were full. Six large windows on the outside wall let in plenty of daylight and provided inviting window seats in which to curl up and read. Leslie, who had always liked books, found herself having to squash a surge of covetousness. "What a place!"

"It is lovely, is it not?" someone agreed, and she jumped violently and whipped her head back and forth. A sheepish laugh came from somewhere; then she saw Liselotta arise from the far end of a long table at her right. "I am sorry, Leslie, I frightened you!"

Leslie sagged against the door with relief. "You did scare me. Oh brother, it's a good thing Christian didn't see that. He'd only have more fuel for the fire."

Liselotta approached, looking a little confused. "I am sorry. My English becomes better slowly. There is so much I cannot understand. What fire do you mean?"

Leslie hesitated a moment, then took a breath and asked straight out, "Are you ever afraid of some crazy person coming from nowhere and maybe taking one of your children?"

"Oh." Liselotta smiled wryly, her gaze drifting off somewhere. "Always, with us, there were 'crazy people' who wanted to do strange things. We often find teenagers outside, young people who just come to stand in our garden…forgive me, I meant 'yard'…because their friends dared them to go near the crazy, scary Liljefors family." She looked at Leslie and her expression sharpened. "Gerhard would get warnings when he and I were seeing each other. When he announced that we were to be married, he had many…threats, people who would say they wished to murder me so that he would not be ruined by one of the Liljefors witches. When I was pregnant with Matteus, people expected me to run back to Liljefors Slott with the baby. Even here in the castle, the servants look strangely at me, make whispers about me, walk far away from me in the halls. It made Gerhard very angry, and my fear grew and grew, until I even wondered once if perhaps Gerhard wished he had never met me."

Leslie gaped at her. "Did you ask him?"

Liselotta nodded and said, "I remember one day when it seemed every servant in the castle had treated me badly. Gerhard was upset, and I was unhappy, and I didn't understand the reason he was upset. So I asked him if he wanted to divorce me. Oh, Leslie, he was so angry then. It's the only time I have ever seen him be angry with me. He told me I must never think such things again, and that if I do, it insults him because it means I do not trust his love for me. It made me cry, because I knew he was right. I often do not trust the people around me, but I always trust my Gerhard."

"You sound like me and Christian," Leslie mumbled. "Or at least, the way I should be with Christian, I guess." She looked up. "I mean…ever since that incident yesterday, I've been afraid to go anywhere for fear those maniacs will show up again and try to harm me or Christian or the babies. It's stupid, I know. We don't even know exactly who those people were targeting. Maybe it wasn't anyone in the family at all—who knows? The two people who could tell us are both in the morgue."

"Yes, that is true," said Liselotta with sympathy.

"But Christian thinks I'm paranoid," Leslie said. "I didn't want to do that talk show, and half the family had to talk me back into it last evening. Then I was afraid one of those maniacs would be in the audience, and Christian kept telling me they had screened the people who came to the show, and that if anyone did try anything, they wouldn't get very far. But I still wasn't sure."

"It would be true," Liselotta said gently. "Gerhard's friend is very, very good at his job. He has only men who are also very good at the job and will do everything to protect us. And it is a large company, Leslie. You see, the royal family is very popular here, and Christian is perhaps most popular of the whole family. Perhaps it means a little more danger for us, but it also means that the people will try much harder to protect their rulers."

"So I _am_ being paranoid," Leslie muttered, turning away and wandering slowly across the room. "I'm going to turn into a smothering, hovering, terrified mother who never lets her children leave the house, even to go to school. I'm pathetic."

Liselotta giggled and began, "I think I can understand…" Her voice cut off suddenly, and Leslie heard the door open at the same time. She turned and went still when she saw Christian in the doorway. "Hello, Christian," Liselotta said.

Christian glanced at her and smiled briefly. "Hello, Liselotta. Forgive me if I'm disturbing you, I was only looking for Leslie."

"I will go and find Gerhard," said Liselotta, and started for the door. To Leslie, as she passed her, she whispered, "I wish you good luck." She slipped out, and Christian closed the door after her, then stood where he was and regarded Leslie.

After a moment she said, "I thought you were going to the museum."

"I decided it was more important to find you," Christian said, settling his weight on one foot and casually stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Have you had a chance to think a little, then?"

"Not so much think as talk," Leslie replied with a self-conscious shrug. "Liselotta was already in here when I came in, and I started talking to her. She was telling me a little about the nutty things she experienced as a member of the Liljefors clan."

"Ah, I see," Christian said neutrally.

She regarded him for a moment, while he stood there expressionless; then she gave another shrug and turned away. "I'm not going to be a very good princess, Christian, you may as well know," she said, moving toward one of the windows. "One threat, one attempt, and I go nuts. I obviously don't believe what any of you say, or trust that we have enough protection." He still said nothing; feeling goaded for some reason, she whirled to stare at him, slowly beginning to lose her composure. "So why don't you just go on and go to the museum and leave me behind? After all, all I'll do is bawl about the lack of adequate security and see demon faces around every corner and behind every display. That's pretty much what you said, isn't it?"

Christian let his head fall forward a moment, shaking it once or twice, and sauntered forward, hands still in his pockets. "One question," he said, his voice still neutral. "Do you trust that the triplets are safe here in the castle?"

She did, in fact; but she wasn't sure what he intended to do with the statement if she said so. Instead she retorted, "I thought you already knew. Since I'm so paranoid, I'd think you'd automatically assume I wouldn't."

Exasperated again—at least judging from his expression—Christian stopped. "I'm trying to meet you halfway here, Leslie. If you prefer to prolong this senseless argument, just tell me so and I'll leave you to nurture your wounds here alone."

The lingering tension from the scare the day before and her own embarrassment at her mistrust in their security precautions, along with the sick-to-her-stomach feeling she always got whenever she and Christian argued, acted together to make her detonate. "I was talking to Liselotta," she shouted at him, tears spilling over and adding fury and frustration at herself to the emotional mix. "She said she got a lot more threats and persecution than I ever did and that she asked Gerhard once if he wanted to get a divorce because of all the trouble it was causing, and he got mad at her and told her no and never to think like that again. She put this a little more in perspective for me. Now I'm feeling stupid enough without you standing there letting me shove my foot even farther into my mouth. And just to answer your question, yes, I do trust the security here in the castle. I'm sorry to have been flip, but I think I'm at the end of my rope here!"

Christian stared at her, mouth open. _"Herregud,_ Leslie!"

"Oh, just go take your tour and leave me alone," she wailed, fighting her tears. "It's what you want anyway…"

"Damn it, Leslie, no, it's not," Christian said through a weary sigh. "Truly, I have to ask you this: do you honestly think I'd deliberately expose the triplets to needless peril? I thought you and I could go with Carl Johan; that was why he stopped me in the great entry in the first place. He's probably standing out there right now wondering where we are. It would be just the three of us, and the triplets would stay right here." He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms; that finally broke through her disintegrating control and she began to sob into his shoulder. "Now, it's all right, Leslie, stop crying. So, do you think I would put them in danger?"

"No," Leslie managed, fighting again to regain control over her emotions.

"Well, that's one thing in my favor at least," he said wryly. "Here, now, stop, all right? Perhaps you'll be a lousy princess, my Rose, but you'll be a good mother, with your concern for our children." He tipped her head up and smiled into her red, teary face. "If it will make you feel any better, we'll discuss it with Carl Johan on our way to the museum."

Leslie nodded and said slowly, "I know you think I'm being paranoid. But that feeling hasn't gone away, Christian. When the security men said they saw someone get away, and when those servants said they didn't catch the person who ran into the south wing, I knew it wasn't over yet. As long as those two are free and as long as we're here, I'm going to be scared, and that awful feeling will persist."

Christian's expression shifted to startled concern. "You still have it? Tell me, do you think it will go away once we're on the way home? And before you ask, yes, Errico insisted on providing us the use of his jet, especially now after what happened yesterday. We'll have only one stop to refuel and that will be in Chicago; we won't even get off the aircraft. Does that help? Will setting foot on Fantasy Island soil ease your mind at all?"

"I don't know," Leslie admitted reluctantly after a long moment. "I wanted to say it would so you could relax and you wouldn't be so disgusted with me, but I really don't know. Nutjobs have gotten access to the island before. I wish I had even a little idea who these people are, so I could call ahead and tell Father to have people watch out for them."

"I have an idea," Christian mused. "Let me toss the thought at Carl Johan and see what he thinks of it, and then we can work it out from there."


	2. Chapter 2

§ § § -- September 19, 2004

In the car on the way to Dalslund, Carl Johan regarded his brother and sister-in-law. "I understand you had something of a clash," he said.

"Does it show that much, or are the servants just far more gossipy than even I suspected?" Christian asked with a raised eyebrow, and Carl Johan grinned. "We did, I'm sorry to say, but I think we've settled it, tentatively at least. The center of the fuss is Leslie's fear of those characters who tried to disrupt the ceremony yesterday. She tells me that feeling of foreboding hasn't eased at all, and she doesn't even know if going home will help. She does trust the security at the castle, but beyond that, well…"

"I see," said Carl Johan thoughtfully.

"I had a thought," Christian went on. "Gerhard's friend's security men did say they found it necessary to kill two of them. That would put the bodies in the police morgue, wouldn't it? In view of that, perhaps we could get photos of their faces, and that might give Leslie some clue as to who these people might be."

Carl Johan thought about it for a moment. "Perhaps we can speak with Gerhard's friend," he said. "He knows enough people throughout the police department that he might be able to arrange something. When we return from the museum, Leslie, I'll have Gerhard get in touch with his friend and we'll see what can be done."

"I'd appreciate that, Carl Johan," Leslie said with a slightly wavery smile.

"Think nothing of it," Carl Johan said and smiled back. "Now, why don't we put it from our minds for now and think of the tour. I really believe you'll enjoy it, Leslie; there are many dioramas of _jordisk_ history, and as many of them involve our ancestors as other aspects of the development of the country. A sculptor who once worked for Madame Tussaud's in London created quite the parade of wax figures for us. Wait till you see them."

The staff at the museum's front desk welcomed them and arranged for them to have a private tour, separate from other patrons; and the three spent the next two hours making a slow circuit of the entire building, from the room containing the crown Christian had had such a hand in retrieving to the Viking-era artifacts that had been found around present-day Ormslandning on an archaeological expedition in the late 1940s. In between there were copies of the original national constitution drawn up by Magnus Ormssvärd and his band of men, translated into modern _jordiska_ and also into English; paintings and photographs of the progressive development of the cities of Sundborg, Dalslund and Birka (which in the latter case depicted how the town had grown up around the Viking settlement that was now showcased in Birka's Viking Block tourist attraction); the local rise and development of assorted industries, such as fishing, agriculture including several _jordiska_ specialties, and some mechanical occupations, primarily boat-building and clothmaking; and the dioramas Carl Johan had mentioned, showing all kinds of historical scenes. Many involved members of the royal family down through the centuries, but Leslie's favorite by far was the depiction of King Arnulf I's coronation in 1962. They lingered there for quite a little while, with Leslie gazing at the scene that had been recreated from the original film taken of the event. Christian stood by and watched with an ironic smile on his face; he had seen this before, the day the museum had opened and he'd cut the ribbon. Carl Johan laughed at the representation of his twelve-year-old self. "Did I really look that self-important?" he asked rhetorically. "I was rather proud of myself that day, that I was part of something so pivotal to national history, but I didn't know it showed that much."

"I wouldn't know, _äldrebror,"_ Christian teased him. "I can't remember what you were doing. For that matter, I can barely remember what I was doing!"

"You would have rather been anywhere but there," Carl Johan teased back. "The expression they put on Anna-Laura's face here is absolutely fitting. She was quite upset with you…although later she admitted to me that she was also upset with Mother and Father for putting her in sole charge of you for the duration. I suppose I wouldn't have minded sharing the duty with her, but Arnulf would have thought it beneath him."

"I don't doubt it," Christian agreed dryly. "Leslie, my Rose, what do you find so fascinating about this particular display?"

"Other than you, you mean?" Leslie said with a grin. "Really, this looks so lifelike. Did they come around and get the actual clothes you all wore that day?"

Christian laughed. "Come to think of it, I believe they did," he remarked. "Anna-Laura mentioned it at some point when she first received word that they were putting this scene together. Everything we were wearing during Father's coronation had evidently been stored somewhere in the south wing, and she had a few servants unearth all those clothes and turn them over to the museum." His gaze strayed to the wax figure of Queen Susanna. "Mother still looks as though she should come alive any moment. Of course, she had gone gray by the time I was a teenager, but otherwise, this is as near as you'll ever come to seeing her in person. The sculptor was extremely talented and did his research very thoroughly."

He watched while Leslie gazed at the late queen's face, as if committing it to memory. After a moment or two she remarked softly, "She was very pretty. I can see which parent you got your looks from, Christian."

Carl Johan cleared his throat and suggested, "Tell me what you think of our father, Leslie. What sort of grandfather do you suppose he might have been to the triplets?"

She peered into Arnulf I's face, squinting slightly. Christian's smile widened a bit with amusement. "Well," she finally said with an embarrassed grin, "it's hard to say, because of the way I understand he used to treat Christian. But Anna-Kristina and Gerhard have said they remember him as a fairly indulgent grandfather. Maybe he'd have given the triplets a break, even if they were Christian's kids."

Christian and Carl Johan both laughed. "That's about what I've always thought," said Christian, and his brother nodded. "But I think he would have liked you, Leslie. After all, he was constantly insisting I get out and meet women, undoubtedly in the hope I'd find one to marry. Mother would have been very happy with you, I think." He looked at his watch and then apologetically at the patient tour guide. "I think we've wasted enough of this poor girl's time…we need to get back to the castle and begin packing everything for the trip home."

The tour guide smiled. "It was my pleasure to escort you. Oh…the museum director has asked to see you, I hear. He says it won't take very long."

"If it has to do with a wax-figure diorama of my re-crowning, I'm not certain I want to hear about it," Christian kidded. "But let's go and find out what he'd like to speak to me about, anyway." He slipped an arm around Leslie's waist, and they followed the tour guide out to the front desk, where the director waited for them.

When Christian repeated his little joke, the director laughed. "Someone actually suggested that, Your Highness, but we are well aware that you prefer to play down your status and your fame, and I felt it better that we simply request of you that you and Princess Leslie sign something for us, so that the signatures can be transferred to a plaque that will be mounted on the pedestal of the display box containing the original crown. Would that be satisfactory to you?"

Christian nodded, smiling. "That's far preferable, to me. Since Leslie and I are leaving for home tomorrow, perhaps you'd like to get the signatures now."

"If you'd kindly wait one moment, Your Highnesses," the director said, "I'll get the materials you will need to sign on so that the signatures can be transferred to the plaque." He hurried away, and Carl Johan, Christian and Leslie spent the intervening time greeting visitors and occasionally answering questions.

Ten minutes later Christian and Leslie had signed, and they were on the way back to the castle. "I expect it will be time for the triplets to eat again," Christian mused. "We've been gone long enough now that they're likely to be getting quite hungry."

"Have they missed any doctor's visits?" Carl Johan asked.

"No, but they are scheduled for a regular checkup on the 29th," Christian said, "and they're supposed to get the next round of immunizations then. And Leslie wants to get back to her job, lest Mr. Roarke give it to someone else." They chuckled, and he added, "Along with that, I have a good bit of work to do regarding my own business. Errico is still trying to get me to agree to a branch in Santi Arcuros, and he made an outrageous proposal in the attempt to persuade me. Wait till you hear this." With that he explained to his amazed brother what Errico had offered to do to facilitate a branch in his capital city.

When he finished, Carl Johan shook his head. "Forgive me, Christian, and I know it seems to you like charity—but I think it's a splendid idea myself. With Errico handling all the startup costs, all you need do is hire the staff and arrange for that five percent of profits to go to one of his or Queen Michiko's charities. You can hardly lose with such an arrangement, and it would bring you further income, which can't hurt now that you're supporting three children."

"That would mean I'd have to go to Santi Arcuros for at least a month," Christian said through a heavy sigh. "Right now I merely want to go home and recover from all this craziness, and try to get used to being a prince once more. Perhaps early next year I'll have the energy and willingness to consider it, but this just isn't the time."

"But you haven't ruled it out entirely, have you?" Carl Johan asked.

"Just the fact that you're talking about putting it off means you're at least giving it some thought, my love," Leslie agreed, patting Christian's shoulder.

"Ach," groaned Christian, and Leslie and Carl Johan laughed quietly. "All right, I'll admit, Errico's idea was rather appealing on the whole. But I need a break before I throw myself into a project like that. And don't forget, my Rose, it means time away from you and the triplets." She made a face and he grinned. "Aha, it seems you forgot about that. Well, no matter. We'll discuss it at some other time."

It was mid-afternoon by now, and since it was a Sunday the entire royal family was in residence, taking it easy. Carl Johan went to find Gerhard, and Christian and Leslie went directly to their suite to feed the triplets. Since being around the family, and finding that European attitudes toward breast-feeding were far less prudish than those of Americans, Leslie had relaxed enough that she had little worry about having another family member walk in while she and Christian were in the middle of giving a feeding. She didn't even look up when Christian responded to a knock on the door with, "Just come in, we're only feeding our little piglets."

The door opened on three laughing figures—Carl Johan, Gerhard and Liselotta. "Oh, they're piglets now!" Gerhard said, glancing at a giggling Liselotta. Christian and Leslie both grinned; she had Tobias and Susanna and he was feeding Karina.

"That especially applies to Tobias," Leslie said. "I hate to think what he's going to be like when he's a teenager. There'll never be any food in the house."

Their visitors laughed again and moved some chairs around the comfortably padded sofa where Christian and Leslie sat. "So," said Gerhard, "Father tells me you two would like me to contact my friend Lars with the security company and ask him a favor."

Christian nodded and explained his idea in regard to getting clues to the identity of their would-be attackers. "Do you think he can do that?"

"You're fortunate that he met his wife at her job—in the city forensics lab," Gerhard said with a grin. "They hit it off so well because they were more or less in the same profession, and occasionally they can help each other a bit in their respective jobs. I know you two are leaving for Fantasy Island tomorrow, so I'll see if he can perhaps rush this for you."

Gerhard managed to arrange for photos to be taken, and in about two hours his friend Lars arrived at the castle with a large envelope. He bowed to the royal family, shook hands with Christian and Carl Johan, and accompanied all of them into the sitting room. When the rest of the family had joined them, Lars looked around at the group and smiled a little ruefully. "Before I give these to Princess Leslie," he said, "I might warn you that you may not get any answers from these pictures."

"I understand," Leslie said, "because I won't necessarily recognize them…"

"There's more than that, Your Highness," Lars explained. "You might have recognized them in life, but not in death. You see, my wife is a Marilyn Monroe fan; and she owns a biography that contains a photograph of Ms. Monroe after her death. If you saw that picture without knowing who its subject was, you would never guess that it's Marilyn Monroe. Admittedly, it had to do with procedures her funeral home took to help preserve the body and prepare it for burial; but the difference is still shocking. That may be true of these people as well, so don't be disappointed if you can't identify them."

"I see," Leslie mumbled, biting her lip. A memory flashed across her mind and she wondered briefly if that was the reason for Tattoo's closed casket at his funeral. She leaned into Christian when he put an arm around her, then slowly lifted the flap of the envelope and extracted two 8x10 black-and-white photographs. She laid the envelope on her lap and placed the pictures atop it, side by side, so that Christian could see them as well.

"They look related," Christian noted after a few seconds.

"Yeah," Leslie mumbled, frowning. Both subjects had light hair that, in the photos, hung lank and damp, or perhaps oily. They both had wide mouths and faint clefts in their chins, and their faces seemed too lean, as though they either had high metabolisms or simply hadn't been getting enough to eat. The skin was peculiarly dark in color. "What's wrong with their skin?" she asked, looking up at Lars.

"It happened after death, Your Highness," he said. "They're Caucasian."

She nodded and returned her attention to the photos. She had the sense that she should know who they were; the cleft chins reinforced this sensation for some reason, but in the end she couldn't place them. Leslie sighed and handed the pictures back to Lars. "I wish I could figure it out," she said slowly. "Something about them makes me think I should know them, but it doesn't stand out strongly enough for me to make a connection."

Lars nodded. "That was to be expected," he said. "If you do happen to think of anyone you know with features like that, please contact Prince Gerhard, and he will notify me. All the reports have stated that at least one figure was seen fleeing the grounds, and there are many reports also of someone wearing white who left the great entry immediately after the plot was foiled…if it was a plot at all."

"It had to be," Gabriella said. "I'm told the reports also state these people were armed. What else would they be doing except carrying out a plot?"

"Perhaps so, Your Majesty," Lars replied respectfully. "In any case, it's the job of the police now to make that designation." He arose. "I apologize that we couldn't be of further help, but perhaps it will give you a bit of a clue, Your Highness."

Leslie smiled, still uncomfortable with the honorific. "I'll tell Gerhard if I do get a connection," she promised. Lars nodded, bowed once more and then left.

For a moment the family was silent; then Christian cleared his throat. "I'm afraid Leslie and I had better finish our packing," he said. "We have to leave early tomorrow."

§ § § -- September 21, 2004

Christian and Leslie were weary and the babies were all asleep, but they had stopped at the main house to update Roarke on what was happening. Roarke took it in for a few minutes when they'd finished speaking, and when he didn't respond right away Leslie said nervously, "Do you think there's any reason to believe the threat's over?"

Roarke focused on her. "Why do you ask?"

"Because…" She hesitated, cast Christian a skittish glance, then confessed, "Because I still have the feeling something isn't right. I wish I could ask you to have people on the lookout for someone suspicious, but I don't really know who to look for."

"And," Roarke said, "given enough resources, it's still possible for an individual to buy a 'last-minute' pass aboard the charter." He went back to considering what they had told him, and Christian and Leslie looked at each other.

Then Christian said, "On Sunday my nephew's friend, the owner of the security service that we employed, brought post-mortem photographs of the two who were killed—just the faces. They weren't identifiable from those, but Leslie did notice something she thought should have given her a clue."

"They had cleft chins," Leslie put in when Roarke looked curiously at her. "Not deep clefts, just faint ones, but I could still see them. That, and very lean faces. It was hard to tell anything else because the skin was so discolored and it distorted my perception of them. But for some reason I have the feeling I should know who those characters were."

Roarke took that in as well; then he shook his head. "I am afraid, Leslie, that the best advice I can give you and Christian is to take whatever precautions you can. Keep your doors and windows locked, especially at night and when you're not at home. If you do feel that you should be able to identify the perpetrators from the photographs, as you say, you may wish to consider anyone you know who has the features you noticed."

"That," Christian put in, "would be valid only if everyone in the group were related to each other. We have no way of knowing that."

"Do you know whether the two who were killed were men or women?" Roarke asked.

"We were told that they were both female," Christian said. "They looked enough alike to be sisters, but not twins."

"I see," Roarke murmured. He looked up after a second or two. "For now, why don't you two go home and get whatever rest you can. If in fact the remaining members of this group are targeting either or both of you, and if they are determined to get onto the island, they will. Without knowing who they are, even I cannot put preventive measures into place. As I mentioned, the best I can offer you at the moment is to make sure your doors and windows are locked. And Leslie, when you come here for work—and wait until Thursday to do so—bring the triplets with you. Mariki and the staff will watch them for you, and between duties you'll be able to feed them."

"We can do that," said Christian. "As my niece quite bluntly put it, we can't live our entire lives running scared from these people."

"Indeed," Roarke concurred. "Very well, be careful on your way home."

§ § § -- September 23, 2004

It was late morning and the triplets were sleeping in their bassinets in Leslie's old room, while Mariki did the usual housecleaning and Leslie and Roarke were working in the study. It had been a quiet morning, and by now Leslie had relaxed to some extent; she felt even more at ease here in the main house with Roarke. It might be folly, but there was no other place on the island she felt safer—even her own home.

The phone rang a little before eleven-thirty and Roarke answered it. When he said in disbelief, "How did that happen?" Leslie looked up and stared at him. As she watched, Roarke listened, shook his head a couple of times, then frowned. "Very well, I'll call the station myself. Thank you."

The second he hung up, Leslie demanded, "How did what happen?"

"That was the hospital," Roarke said. "A nurse there discovered about half an hour ago that a number of items are missing from the medicinal stores in the basement. They've notified the police, and suggested I call the station myself for further information."

Leslie frowned and watched him call the police station, glancing nervously overhead at the ceiling. It would take her and Christian a little while to get used to the new routine now that they'd gone back to work, but she still had faith in her father and his abilities. She had witnessed more than one occasion on which he'd used his powers to save lives, and she knew full well that he would be especially protective of his grandchildren.

Roarke hung up. "There is very little the police can do," he said gravely. "They dusted the area very carefully but were unable to get any fingerprints. They did, however, obtain a shoe print in the dust on a little-trod section of the floor. They say it is a woman's shoe, size 7, approximately."

"A lot of women wear size-seven shoes," Leslie said uneasily.

"Indeed," Roarke said. "They have a photo of the print. Perhaps you'd prefer to go into town with Christian after lunch and have a look at it."

Leslie nodded without speaking. As alert as she was, she wanted to investigate every possible clue. Nothing had happened so far, but she had the feeling that whoever these people were, they were just patiently awaiting the ideal time to strike.

Around one-fifteen she and Christian were examining a photograph of a shoe print. Hopefully Leslie studied the print, trying to find some distinguishing mark; but the sole of the shoe was merely a long series of horizontal lines. "Sneakers," Christian said from beside her. "No other kind of shoe leaves a mark like that."

"Exactly," said the policeman on duty, a fellow named Jeff McKay. "Most name-brand sneakers have distinctive patterns on the soles, too. This is likely to be a no-name job or a generic store brand of some kind."

Leslie groaned. "That kind of shoe could belong to half the people on the island."

"Wait a moment, my Rose, before you grow too discouraged…look here." Christian laid a fingertip on the photo near the edge of the heel. "There's a spot here." Leslie leaned forward to squint more closely; now that he had pointed it out, she could see a rough-edged, nearly perfectly round break in the lines on the sole.

"Maybe it's a hole in the shoe," Leslie said. "Awfully small though." The spot covered only two of the lines.

"It's quite possible," Christian said, glancing at Officer McKay. "I expect that may have ruled out the nurses at the hospital as suspects."

"Not necessarily," McKay said. "The shoes nurses usually wear are sturdy with flat soles, but some brands do have patterns like that one. And any nurse could have left home as usual, then come back in street clothes, sneaked in and taken what he or she wanted. We can't rule out the hospital staff till everybody's shoes have been checked. And that hole could be the hinge on which this whole thing turns."


	3. Chapter 3

§ § § -- September 26, 2004

"Someone seems to have been trampling in our grass," was the first thing Christian said when he appeared at lunch on Sunday.

Roarke and Leslie both paused to stare at him in surprise. "Good afternoon to you as well, Christian," Roarke replied pointedly, but with a humorous touch to his voice.

Christian grinned sheepishly. "I'm sorry, but it's been on my mind the whole morning. I haven't had a chance to mow the lawn since we got home last Tuesday, and the grass is tall enough to hold depressions. Not that I could get prints, but someone was definitely trespassing on our property." He glanced at Leslie and said half-jokingly, "For all I know, I'm being stalked by Janine Polidari."

Leslie had to laugh at that. "Well, I don't think she's the culprit. Camille told me on Friday that Andrea worked out a deal with her ex-husband's parents, and they're letting Janine live with them and finish high school with her old friends in Brookline. I doubt she'll be back except to visit, because her next step is college—and there's no college on Fantasy Island. In the end Janine got exactly what she wanted."

"I have to be honest…it's a relief to hear that," Christian said with a grin. "Not that I disliked her at all, but her crush on me was out of control. It's a shame none of our friends' children are old enough to drive as yet; I still think it would be better for us to hire someone to do the food shopping. I'll just have to advertise again." He frowned. "However, that still doesn't explain those apparent footprints in the grass. I'm not sure whether I should try to mow now."

Roarke smiled. "Perhaps you should leave the grass as it is for a time," he said, "at least until the next development in this little mystery of ours. You might wish to leave an outside light on through the night, to discourage further such episodes."

‡ ‡ ‡

"_All right. What did you learn when you went to take those vials from the hospital?"_

"_Quite a bit. It's easy enough to pick the lock on that door in the basement storage room. There's only a skeleton staff during the night, and not very many patients—either this is a smaller island than we thought, or it's quite sparsely populated. Several doctors also have their offices in the hospital building, and that includes the pediatrician. I took a look at her appointment book for the coming week, and the name Enstad is written on Wednesday for 1:00. We may be able to make our move then if the conditions are right."_

"_Excellent work. Perhaps our sisters' loss will be a little less detrimental to the end goal; you've stepped nicely into their shoes. And you, what about the house?"_

"_Quiet. They have a servant there who stays all day cleaning house and whatnot, so there's always someone at home. They keep all the first-floor windows and doors locked, and when I went back last night to try the upper windows, I found those locked as well. The grass is long, needs mowing…I suppose the servant doesn't do yard work."_

"_And of course, you walked on that grass, didn't you. Don't you know that long grass will hold depressions? Mash it flat and it can't rise again because it's too heavy. It's too bad you weren't one of the ones who was killed back at the royal castle!"_

"_Don't be so quick to criticize! If it weren't for me, we wouldn't be here and you know it. It's going to take all three of us to handle them in any case."_

"_Don't you ever stop arguing? If we can just keep things together, soon we'll achieve our goal and we'll have the revenge we've waited so long for."_

"_You're right. Two and a half days to wait…it's hard to believe we're so close. But we've been patient, and soon we'll see the rewards."_

§ § § -- September 29, 2004

"Are you sure you can handle the triplets by yourself, my love?" Leslie asked, watching anxiously as Christian strapped in the last baby.

"Don't worry—if I need help, someone will come out," Christian said. "I know you're nervous, but they'll be back safe and sound after their appointment. Perhaps it's as well you have too many things to do—you were a wreck at their first round of immunizations."

"Christian Enstad…" Leslie growled, and he grinned, leaning over to kiss her.

Roarke, chuckling, patted his daughter's shoulder. "Good luck, Christian."

Christian smiled. "I'm sure it'll all just be routine. I'll be back with the triplets a bit past two or so." He got into the driver's seat and piloted the car down the lane, while Leslie lingered on the porch steps, staring after it.

"Leslie, you'd better get started," Roarke advised. "There's a great deal of preparation that needs to be done." A team of amateur vulcanologists was due on the island that weekend, with a shared fantasy to discover a foolproof way to predict eruptions; and among other things, a path to Mount Tutumoa had to be cleared out for them.

Leslie sighed and followed Roarke into the house. "I don't know how much they're going to get out of this fantasy, to be honest. Mount Tutumoa's extinct."

"Not quite, my dear Leslie—merely dormant," Roarke corrected her. "You may recall a fantasy back in late 1981 in which a vulcanologist had a somewhat similar fantasy. Mount Tutumoa erupted then, but fortunately it was a minor eruption and confined to a two-mile radius around the mountain. There have been no signs of Tutumoa resuming activity, but if our guests' fantasy is successful, we may obtain a means of knowing not only when an eruption will take place, but how severe it will be."

"That could definitely be useful," Leslie agreed. "Okay, well, in that case, I guess I'm off. See you in a few hours, Father."

"You know where I will be if you need me," Roarke told her, and she smiled acknowledgement before leaving.

By the time she had a chance to pause and check her watch, it was past three and she could feel the physical signs of approaching feeding time. She'd had to drive close to the other end of the island where the mountain was actually located; the closest large structures to it were the high school and the pineapple plantation, both located in the foothills just past the most extreme reaches of the lava flows in the 1981 eruption Roarke had mentioned. It would take her some forty minutes to get back to the main house, and she wondered if she could make it before the triplets upset the whole house with their hungry screaming and before she started leaking. She needed to get back anyway, even if it weren't for the triplets; she had a report from the pineapple plantation, and an eleventh-grade geography class at the high school had a request for Roarke regarding a field trip.

Leslie piloted the jeep out of the dirt road that provided the only vehicular access to the mountain itself, and was about to let fly up the Ring Road when she spied a figure standing at the corner of the pavement and the dirt access lane to the plantation. She slowed to see if the person needed a ride and discovered it was Maureen. "Fancy meeting you here," she said with a grin, pulling to a stop beside her friend.

Maureen laughed. "I'm glad we did. I took one of the ferry buses down here, but I don't know the bus schedule very well, and I was about ready to head back to the plantation so I could call Grady for a ride." She was referring to a public bus service that shuttled island residents back and forth between their homes and the ferry to Coral Island. "I'm glad you came along. What're you doing all the way down here?"

"Heading back," Leslie said with a grin as Maureen climbed in. "I've been doing some preparatory work for Father, and I finally got enough done that I can take a break and go feed the triplets. What's your excuse for being here?"

Maureen laughed and said, "I met someone whose husband works at the plantation; they live in one of the apartments down here. She's a maid at the hotel, and she has a three-month-old son and a five-year-old daughter. We were eyeing the same magazines and books in the bookstore in town, and we noticed our tastes were practically identical and laughed at it, then introduced ourselves to each other and struck up a friendship. You'd like her a lot, Leslie, I think. Her name's Pualani and she's a sweetheart. We were talking about everything imaginable…her weird new neighbors, the latest books, what her little boy did."

"Sounds like fun," said Leslie. "Where's April?"

"With Grady," said Maureen. "Since he works from home, he usually watches her if I have to do grocery shopping or something."

Leslie grinned. "Then they're probably on their way to pick up Brianna from school, so you might not have reached him unless he thought to take his cell phone with him."

"True," Maureen agreed, rolling her eyes. Grady was known as a bit of a technophobe and had only grudgingly bought a cell phone the previous year; but he never remembered to keep it on him, which had led to a lot of good-natured ribbing. "Anyway, thanks for the ride, Leslie, I really appreciate it. Hey…didn't the triplets have a doctor's appointment today?"

Leslie nodded. "Christian took them in since Father and I had so much to do for this one fantasy coming up. Once I get to the main house and get the triplets fed, I'll call him and find out how they did. Do you want me to drop you off first?"

"No, go back to the main house first," Maureen said. "If Christian's at work you'll probably need a warm body to hold the third triplet for feeding."

The drive back went faster than Leslie had anticipated, partly because she and Maureen chatted the entire way; just over thirty minutes had elapsed when they arrived. Inside, it was surprisingly quiet; Roarke was still out, but they had expected that. "I don't hear any babies crying," Maureen remarked. "That might be a good sign."

"I'll go up and check on them," Leslie said and headed for the stairs while Maureen took one of the chairs in front of the desk. She glanced into her old bedroom; the bassinets that Mariki and the kitchen staff had scrounged up for the triplets' use when they napped here were all empty, and Leslie blinked in amazement. Had Christian taken the babies home? Frowning, she retreated downstairs.

"You're empty-handed?" Maureen asked in surprise.

"The triplets aren't here," Leslie said. Maureen gave her a strange look and she added, "I mean, they're not in the bassinets in my old room, and I don't see why they'd be anywhere else. I wonder if Mariki and the staff have any ideas."

"It's worth trying," Maureen said, rising. "Let's go in and ask."

Mariki and her three staff were chopping vegetables; they all looked up when Leslie and Maureen came in. "Can we help you, Miss Leslie?" asked Mariki curiously.

Leslie looked around; it was just the four women. "The triplets aren't with you guys?" she asked, staring at Mariki.

Mariki stared back in surprise. "No, I'm sorry, Miss Leslie," she said. "Matter of fact, we haven't seen anyone at all since lunchtime."

"Christian didn't drop in and ask you to keep an eye on the babies till either Father or I got back here?" Leslie asked, feeling the first stirrings of alarm.

"No, no one at all was here," Mariki said and glanced at the kitchen clock, then looked again, harder. "Great Pele, I didn't know it was that late in the day! By the way, Mr. Roarke asked me to clear out the closets upstairs, and I found a few things that belonged to you that you might want. Why don't you go up and take a look at them?"

Distracted, Leslie nodded. "Yeah, sure…thanks, Mariki, I'll get up there later. Well…maybe Christian just took the triplets home. I'll call our house." She managed to produce a smile for Mariki, but by the time she and Maureen were back in the study, she was already shaking her head. "There's no reason for him to have taken them home. He should have brought them back here."

"Call his office," Maureen suggested. "It's possible something happened…maybe he wasn't feeling well or something, and had to go home."

They looked at each other for a long moment, both unsure of the plausibility of this, but in the end Leslie nodded, picked up the phone and punched out 464. When Julianne answered, she said, "Hi, Julianne, it's Leslie—could I talk to Christian?"

"He isn't here, Miss Leslie," said Julianne. "Was it supposed to be a major appointment at the doc's office? I mean, that's the last we saw of him—he said he had to take the triplets in for their next round of vaccinations, and that was before he left for lunch. He hasn't been back since then."

"Has he called?" Leslie asked, her alarm rising.

"No, not even that. We figured something unexpected must've come up. Let us know when you find out, huh? I hope one of the babies didn't get sick or anything."

"Me too," Leslie mumbled. "Okay…thanks, Julianne." She hung up and reported, "He hasn't been back to the office since he went to lunch—he left directly after lunch for the doctor's office, with the triplets."

"Wow," said Maureen, frowning. "What if you call your house?"

"I could try," Leslie said with a sigh. She punched out 695 and waited through the usual four rings, then heard hers and Christian's message on the machine. She frowned heavily, but stuck it out; when the beep sounded she said, "Christian, are you there? It's just me—if you're there, please pick up."

She paused, and then heard a click before a hesitant, "Hello?"

"Ingrid," Leslie exclaimed. Ingrid's English was still shaky, and her own _jordiska_ was little better. She plowed ahead anyway, using what she knew. _"Var är Prins Christian?"_

Ingrid said something rapidly and Leslie broke in, _"Langsammere plissa!"_ Christian had taught her this phrase to use when someone spoke more rapidly than she could follow; it meant, "More slowly, please!" Ingrid repeated herself, carefully pacing her words; Leslie still didn't get everything, but it was enough to tell her what she needed to know. She thanked Ingrid and hung up, then said, "Ingrid said she's been alone in the house all day—at least I think that's what she said, I'm still not too fluent in _jordiska_. But I did get that they aren't at the house. Something feels really wrong here. I wish I knew where the heck Father is."

"Didn't he say where he was planning to go?" asked Maureen.

"Well, I know he mentioned he was going to get a team of people together to clear out a path in the jungle to Mount Tutumoa from the vehicle-access trail, but other than that I really don't know, and I'm not sure if he meant to stay with them or not. This is really scaring me, Maureen."

Maureen shook her head and remarked, "It's starting to sound pretty fishy to me too. Christian's never struck me as the kind of guy who'd go off and do something out of the blue, without telling you about it. It's possible he could've gone off to visit somebody, or else maybe something happened to the car and he's waiting for help to come. Did he have his cell phone with him?"

"As far as I know he did," said Leslie. "I can't believe I didn't think to call that first." She punched out the number, her teeth clamping her lower lip while she waited through several buzzes. When the answering system kicked in, she shook her head and cut the connection without leaving a message. "No answer." She gnawed on her lip, then decided, "I think I'll call Anna-Kristina."

But she could tell from Anna-Kristina's surprised tone that Christian and the triplets weren't there either. "I didn't hear from Uncle Christian at all," the princess said, "and I really wasn't expecting to. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I was just looking for him. Thanks for your help." Leslie hung up and stared at Maureen. "Where else could they be?"

"The doctor's office?" Maureen offered a little hesitantly. "I know that sounds pretty farfetched, considering it's almost four o'clock and the appointment shouldn't have lasted that long, but maybe the doctor can tell you something."

"I hope so," Leslie said fretfully and bit her lip, this time punching out the number for Dr. Corbett's office. She had to wait for the pediatrician to come to the phone, but soon was able to ask a few questions, which got her nowhere.

"Uh-oh," Maureen said when Leslie hung up.

Leslie nodded. "She said she helped Christian strap the babies into their car seats, and then he drove off like normal. She didn't notice anything, and she said he didn't mention any problem with the babies, or anything strange in whatever conversation they had during the appointment. And she said Christian looked perfectly well himself."

Maureen considered for a moment, then offered, "Let me try something." Leslie gave her the phone, and she called her own house, only to learn from Grady that not only were Christian and the triplets not there, but the Enstad house looked abandoned. "He said the garage door's up but there's no car in the driveway."

"That's no surprise," Leslie muttered. "I guess we might as well call the others."

They took turns phoning Myeko, Camille, Lauren, Tabitha and Katsumi; but all five women told them Christian had never dropped in with the triplets. "Sounds like a great mystery to me," Myeko remarked. "If you need help solving it, just yell at me."

Maureen laughed when Leslie told her that. "Well, at least she's willing to help. At the moment, Leslie, I think the only other thing you can do is wait for Mr. Roarke to come back and see if he has any ideas. I guess you can take me home…though if you want, you might go upstairs and look through those things Mariki mentioned and take them back, and drop them off at your house, if you want any of them."

Confused at first, Leslie suddenly fully remembered Mariki's reminder about the closet-cleaning. "Oh, that. I guess we might as well. Come on up with me."

In the guest/entertainment room, the two friends spied a small pile of articles in front of the closet door. There were a few books and knickknacks, along with several frames that leaned against the wall. Leslie picked up the first one and smiled wistfully. "I can't believe I left that here all this time. This was done by Tattoo—remember when he gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday?" It was a depiction of the Champs-Élysées in the spring, boasting a riot of vivid colors from the blue sky and water to the green grass to the reds, pinks, purples and yellows of the many flowers; several people were shown picnicking or strolling along, and one was even walking a dog.

"Oh yeah…I still remember your face when you unwrapped it," Maureen said. "I can't believe you couldn't have found a space for that in your house somewhere and hung it! Wait till Christian sees it, he'll probably say the same thing."

"Obviously that's coming home with me too," Leslie remarked with a grin and set the painting aside to take with her. "I remember he gave me three over the years…" She let the sentence hang while she lifted the second frame and displayed a scene of a rainy street in Paris. "Oh, I totally forgot I had that one. I think it was a Christmas gift one year."

"That's pretty too. Take it home," said Maureen. "If those other two are Tattoo's paintings too, you should take them all with you."

"Yeah," Leslie agreed, picking up the third frame. This time it was one of the many highly coveted paintings Tattoo had done in his last few years, depicting a small French country cottage surrounded by trees sporting brilliant autumn foliage. "Another present, the first Christmas after I came back here. He used to do a lot of these in the last five or six years of his life, trying to put away enough money for his family to live on before he died and they had to get by on their own. I was lucky enough to get one of the earliest ones."

"That's beautiful," said Maureen. "Grady was interested in trying to get one, but he can't even find one on the online auctions. They always go for astronomical prices." Just then they heard Roarke's voice call from downstairs, and she added, "I'll go tell him we're up here and we can ask him about Christian and the babies." Leslie nodded, and Maureen went for the stairs while she set aside the painting and reached for the last frame. She knew full well that Tattoo had given her a total of seven paintings before his death. Three of them were here, having previously hung in her old room; she had arranged for three others to be displayed in bungalows, and the last one hung in Roarke's study. So what was this one? She hoisted it away from the wall and turned it around to look at it, then froze and gasped.

"Oh my God!" she shrieked in horror. The portrait dropped out of her numbed fingers and hit the floor; the glass shattered and the frame cracked.

Maureen's head popped around the stairwell at the noise. "Leslie, are you all right?" she demanded.

Roarke appeared behind her, stepping around her and half jogging down the hall; Maureen came hastily after him. "Leslie, what happened?" Roarke asked, taking in her white face and the ruined frame at her feet.

"Th-this portrait," Leslie stuttered, her teeth beginning to chatter. "Father, I know who our assailants were in Lilla Jordsö, and now they have Christian and the triplets!"


	4. Chapter 4

§ § § -- September 29, 2004

Roarke's gaze grew urgent and Maureen exclaimed, "What? What in heck are you talking about, Leslie?"

"One moment, Maureen," Roarke requested. "Leslie, how did you come to this conclusion? Here, sit down and tell us." He brought her to the sofa, shifting Tattoo's paintings where she'd propped them against it, and sat down beside her.

Maureen leaned aside and peered at the photograph. "Hey," she said, "that's the wedding portrait of you and Teppo! I didn't know you still had that. What're you going to do with it?"

"I d-don't know," Leslie said, hugging herself and shivering. She shifted her gaze to Roarke, then to Maureen. "Bring me the picture, please…"

Maureen stooped, lifted the portrait and carefully handed it to Leslie, who turned it to face Roarke. "Father, take a good look at Teppo's face in this, and then tell me what you remember about my description of the two women who were killed at the castle."

Roarke took in the image of Teppo, then frowned and met his daughter's gaze with a look of recognition. "I see precisely what you mean, child."

"I don't get it," Maureen protested.

Roarke turned to her and briefly explained what had happened during Christian's re-crowning ceremony and how Leslie had had the opportunity to look at photos of the faces of the dead assailants. Maureen nodded and said, "Okay, I see. But what does that have to do with this portrait?"

Leslie looked up at her and began to shiver again, letting the ruined frame fall to the floor and pushing it away from her with one foot as if it were contaminated. "The faces of those two dead women looked very much like Teppo's, with the cleft chins and the lean jaws. Maureen, they were two of Teppo's sisters—Kerttu and Ilta."

Maureen eyed her in confusion for a long moment, trying to process this, then shook her head sharply once or twice. "Why on earth would Teppo's sisters want to kill you?"

Leslie blinked, surprised by the question, and Roarke said gently, "You've never really told us much about your life in Finland during your marriage to Teppo, child. I don't know how much you may have told Christian, but I know little about it, and I'm certain your friends are as much in the dark as I. Perhaps you would summarize for us."

"I guess you're right," Leslie murmured after a moment's thought. "I did tell Christian about some of it last year, but…I guess maybe I didn't even see it clearly till then, and that's why I never told you." She looked up and drew in a breath, still shivering. "Teppo and I had to live in a little basement apartment in his parents' house, and that meant we also had to live with all his siblings—four sisters and two brothers, all younger than he was. The oldest girl was my age, and she and I sort of became friends; at least, she seemed to tolerate me. The others outright hated me. They were chilly to me from the beginning, although at first they pretended to make friends. But as time went by, their dislike of me started to show more and more. I think they blamed me for the fact that their father died on this island, while Teppo and his parents were here back in 1985. They knew Teppo was possessed by this ancient Finnish god, but no matter how much it was explained to them, they preferred to blame me because they said I hadn't done enough to try to save him."

"How vindictive," Maureen said indignantly.

"Oh, but there's more," Leslie said, nodding at Maureen's incredulous look. "After about three years, when I still hadn't gotten pregnant, they started taunting me about it—and their mother was pretty much the ringleader. I figure she probably established her view of me in their minds, and she was going insane, so the crazier she got, the more she hated me, and the more she encouraged her children to hate me. When Teppo was killed, his mother lost her last grip on sanity. I blacked out at his funeral and was out for two days, and during that time Teppo's mother was committed to an insane asylum and his brothers and sisters kicked me out. By then his oldest sister had married and moved out, and she and her husband got my things out of the house and let me stay with them for a while, till I got myself together enough to decide I needed to come back to Fantasy Island."

"My God," Maureen breathed in disbelief. "So which two sisters were these that died at the castle? Did you say he had six brothers and sisters?"

"Yup. Mielikki was the one who was my friend. Antti was the next one, the second boy. Then there were Kerttu and Ilta, the two who were killed, then Niilo, the last boy, and finally the youngest, Liisa."

Roarke asked, "How long has it been since the oldest girl ceased writing to you?"

"Oh, ages," Leslie said. "The last letter I got from her was about a year after Teppo died, and it was only a few lines long. I sent her a Christmas card that year, but she didn't respond, and that was that."

"Do you think she could be in on this thing too? If it's been that long, maybe she's had a change in attitude," Maureen suggested.

"I don't know," said Leslie uneasily. "I guess anything's possible, but I don't know. It was never clear exactly how many people were in on whatever they were trying to do in Lilla Jordsö. There were at least four of them. Kerttu and Ilta were definitely involved. The security people saw someone fleeing the scene, and Christian and I and some other people saw someone in the great entry run out through one of the south-wing corridors. He sent some servants after that person, but they didn't find anyone."

Roarke frowned and said, "The fact that you have realized that the dead women were Teppo's sisters doesn't prove that it's the Komainen children who are now on the island, nor that they have kidnapped the triplets and Christian. Incidentally, why do you assume they have done so?"

"Because when I got home with Maureen, the babies weren't here," Leslie explained. "Christian didn't answer his cell phone. I called his office and they hadn't seen him since he left for lunch. Maureen and I called everyone we could think of, but no one knew anything about it. Even Anna-Kristina hadn't heard from him, and Mariki said no one showed up here after you and I left."

Roarke nodded acknowledgement. "That doesn't completely rule out vehicle trouble or some other cause, but the longer they go missing without word from Christian, the more likely it becomes." He considered for a moment or two, then said, "Why don't you take Maureen home. If there is no message from Christian at your own home, make arrangements for Ingrid to stay with Mateo and Anna-Kristina, where she will be with someone who speaks her own tongue and will be safe, and come back here. If you notice anything suspicious—someone following you, or a person you recognize who should not be here—don't stop for any reason, just come straight back here and let me know about it. At this time there is very little we can do except to wait and see if we hear from someone. If Christian and the children have indeed been abducted, we will be contacted."

Leslie nodded listlessly and got to her feet, stepping carefully around the ruined wedding portrait. "I'm sorry about the glass…" she mumbled.

"I'll see that Mariki takes care of it," Roarke said. "Go ahead now, and thank you for your help, Maureen." In smiling acknowledgement Maureen helped Leslie gather the paintings and followed her downstairs and out to the jeep. They laid the paintings in the back seat and climbed in front, and as Leslie was fitting the key into the ignition Maureen cleared her throat delicately.

"What is it?" Leslie asked.

"I don't like to be gross, but…um…you're leaking." Maureen grinned sheepishly when Leslie looked down at her shirt front.

"Oh no," Leslie groaned. "What'll I do? If I can't feed the triplets…"

"Don't worry," said Maureen. "My mother bought me a breast pump when I had Brianna, and believe me, those things really come in handy. If you pump the milk into bottles and freeze it, you'll have extra milk for later, so that whatever triplet isn't feeding directly from you can still have your milk from a bottle. I'll lend it to you, and you can use it as long as you have to, till Christian and the triplets…well, come back."

"You've been a real lifesaver today, Maureen," Leslie said, her eyes beginning to sting. "I really appreciate it."

"What're friends for?" Maureen said and squeezed Leslie's forearm. "Let's get back home. I'll get you the pump and we'll see what else I can help you with. At the very least I think we should let Grady in on all this."

Leslie nodded, somehow feeling relieved at the thought, even though she knew Grady couldn't help any more than anyone else. By the time she pulled the jeep into her own driveway, her fear for her husband and children was sharing space with a slowly burgeoning rage and loathing for the ones responsible for their disappearance.

Grady listened to Leslie and Maureen's story after sending Brianna off to keep an eye on her baby sister, and shook his head when they finished. "I don't believe in sugarcoating things, and I won't say it sounds good," he said, "but I can give you some hope, Leslie. There's a chance that they're hoping for money, and since you and Christian and Mr. Roarke are all well off, they know you'd be a good source of the stuff. If ransom's their motive, they won't kill anyone."

"I don't think that's what they want," Leslie said, and Maureen shook her head.

Grady looked at his wife. "How can you be so sure?" he asked.

"Actually, Grady," Maureen told him, "Leslie said her first husband's siblings all hated her, and she realized that two of the people who tried to get to the royal family back in Lilla Jordsö were his sisters. I know it's not proof that there's some kind of family plot against Leslie, but I think that's the likeliest scenario here."

Grady eyed her. "You sort of forgot to mention that," he remarked.

"That," Maureen said, playfully bopping him in the upper arm, "is because it's Leslie's tale to tell, not mine. Go ahead and give him the particulars, Leslie, and I'll go find that pump." She left them, and Leslie briefly explained Teppo's siblings' animosity toward her and their probable reasons for it.

"Okay," Grady said slowly, frowning. "But why now?"

"I have no way of knowing that," Leslie said, pulling her T-shirt away from her and grimacing. "I really need to change clothes."

Grady chuckled and said, "Well, to tell you the truth, I think there's safety in numbers. Maureen'll go over with you and get your helper, just in case anyone might be watching the house. Just because they've got Christian and the triplets—if in fact someone does have them—doesn't mean they'll leave you alone."

Maureen returned with the pump. "Okay, here we go. Be back in a bit, Grady." She and Leslie left the Harding house and crossed the street to the Enstad home; Leslie's head was down while she dug in her jeans pocket for the house key, and thus it was she who saw the prints. She stopped short and Maureen bumped into her, grunting.

"Sorry," Leslie mumbled. "But look at that." She pointed at the ground. In the flower bed along the front of the house were several distinct shoe prints.

Maureen peered at them. "They could be Ingrid's."

"Maybe," Leslie said slowly, kneeling to get a closer look at them. But seeing them from this angle told her differently. The print matched the one she and Christian had seen in the police photo—a series of narrow horizontal lines from toe to heel, interrupted near the bottom by a small rough-edged circle. "No," she said, "they're not Ingrid's shoes." She told Maureen about the stolen items at the hospital and the photographed shoe print.

Maureen scowled, knelt beside her and gave the nearest print some study. Then she pointed. "Look—more of them, and not by the same shoe." These prints were simply flat shoe-shaped depressions in the soil, with no distinguishing marks at all.

"Christian said last weekend that he saw flattened spots in the grass," Leslie recalled with a frown of her own. "He didn't get the opportunity to mow after we got home, and when he told Father and me, Father advised him not to mow just yet. I guess he was thinking that it could help in case whoever it was came back."

Maureen surveyed the overgrown yard. "I see what you mean," she said, nodding slowly. "Brother, you've already got all sorts of things to tell Mr. Roarke. Let's get inside before you turn into a gusher, Leslie, you're all wet."

"Blast it," Leslie muttered irritably, and Maureen giggled, eliciting a reluctant grin from Leslie. She shoved the key into the lock and let them both in, calling, "Ingrid!"

Almost instantly the servant girl appeared at a run from the other end of the house and curtsied to Leslie. "Good, you're not hurt," Leslie said mostly to herself, giving Ingrid a quick once-over. Then, in her limited _jordiska_, she advised Ingrid that she was going to call Anna-Kristina, and Ingrid nodded, waiting quietly while Leslie punched out three digits and Maureen set up the pump at the kitchen table.

"Hi, Anna-Kristina, it's me again. Listen…Father and I think something's probably happened to Christian and the triplets, and I wonder if you and Mateo would do us a real favor and give Ingrid a safe place to stay for a night or two?"

"_Herregud_, Aunt Leslie…of course! What do you think happened?" Anna-Kristina asked, instantly alarmed.

"They might've been kidnapped. It's a long story, and we'll try to explain it later. For the moment, would you please let Ingrid know she needs to pack some essentials and tell her what's happening?" Leslie requested.

"I will, yes. Is there anything else you want me to tell her for you?"

"Just tell her Christian and the babies are missing and we're afraid it might be a kidnapping. We'll get her over there sometime in the next hour."

"All right," said Anna-Kristina, and Leslie handed Ingrid the phone so Anna-Kristina could explain the events in _jordiska_. Maureen had finished setting up the pump, and Leslie darted around the kitchen gathering all the baby bottles she could find. Maureen helped her get started and talked her through the use of the pump, and in about half an hour Leslie felt much better and was able to change into a dry shirt. She tucked the four filled bottles into the freezer and went up to pack as she might do for a weekend.

Maureen came up with her and watched. "Leslie, does Christian have a digital camera?" she asked. "I thought it might be a good idea to take pictures of those shoe prints in your flower bed, before it rains or something else happens to them."

"Actually, he does, yes," Leslie said, blinking. "Geez, Maureen, you're wasting your talents in catering. Did you used to be a Nancy Drew freak or something?"

"Well, I was definitely a Nancy Drew fan in my middle-school years," Maureen admitted with a laugh, "but I'd sure hate to be a sleuth for a living. Funny how all that stuff comes back to you sometimes. If you find the camera for me, I'll go get the shots."

"Should be here in the library," Leslie said, dropping a pair of slippers in her weekend duffel and crossing the room. "Considering Christian and his love of anything computer-related, I expect it'll be in a nice, neat, safe spot. Aha, I was right, here it is." She lifted it off a bookshelf over the monitor of Christian's computer and handed it to Maureen.

"Nice one," Maureen said, turning it over and inspecting it. "Trust Christian to have the latest in computer gadgets. Okay, be right back." She headed downstairs while Leslie finished packing; now that she was alone she found herself stewing, alternating between desperate hope that the babies and Christian were unharmed and a titanic desire to cave in the skulls of Teppo's siblings. Despite that Grady and Roarke had both said there was no proof they were on the island, she was certain they were the culprits.

Maureen came back. "These came out great," she said. "I expect the police would be interested in them. Here you go." She handed Leslie the camera, and Leslie tucked it safely into a pocket of her duffel. "Need anything else?"

"I guess we're all set," Leslie said, scanning the bedroom to see if there was anything she might have overlooked. The paintings she had brought home leaned against the side of the dresser, and she found herself stricken by the simple need to show them to Christian. "I think I'd better get Ingrid out of here before I go ape."

"Okay," Maureen said and gave her a swift hug. "You're holding up really well, Leslie. If it really is Teppo's brothers and sisters who took Christian and the babies, you'll hear from them. How else are they going to get whatever they want?"

"True," Leslie agreed with a deep sigh. "Let's get going."

At the main house about forty minutes later, Leslie brought up the photos Maureen had taken and handed Roarke the digital camera. "I recognized one of the prints," Leslie said. "The one with all the lines on it—it's the same one the police found at the hospital."

"I see," Roarke said, gazing at the shots. "Since there are two different sets of shoes represented here, I daresay it's wise that you and Ingrid left the house."

"Has anyone called?" Leslie asked hopefully.

"No, my child, no word has come," Roarke said with a sympathetic smile. "It's still quite early in the game, however. Perhaps tomorrow will bring word from someone."


	5. Chapter 5

§ § § -- September 29, 2004

If Christian had been lucid enough to think about his situation, he would have described it as "floating in the twilight zone". He could remember fairly clearly, and to drown out the voices jabbering in some strange staccato tongue, he went over and over the last few events that had occurred before he'd lost track of time and space.

The triplets' appointment had gone just about as he'd expected it to go. All three babies had checked up with flying colors, and they'd received their next scheduled round of routine vaccinations with the usual wailing of protest and pain. Dr. Corbett, seeing that he had come alone, had helped him carry the triplets out to the car and secure them in their car seats; then she'd bid him goodbye and he had started out of the hospital parking lot, his intention to return to the main house.

But he'd never even gotten close. Just about to make the right-hand turn onto the Ring Road, he'd been startled by three figures dressed in black jumpsuits, faces covered but for the eyes. Two had climbed into the back of the wagon behind the triplets, while the third slammed himself into the passenger seat, thrust a gun at Christian and ordered him to turn left and keep driving until told otherwise. He'd wanted to protest, but the sight of the gun barrel had kept him quiet.

Christian's mind had raced madly all the way down the Ring Road. He'd passed the access road to the Enclave, glanced up it as if hoping he could go home and gotten a jab in the temple with the gun for his effort. In the end he had wound up driving halfway around the island, all the way to the western end and around it before being told to stop at the side of the road. There they'd changed drivers and one of the two in the back had tied a black scarf over Christian's eyes so that he couldn't see where they were going. The car had then moved forward once more, first along pavement, then down some bumpy road, and finally come to a stop. He had been told to get out, and he'd heard the sounds of the triplets being taken from their car seats before the command came to "Walk now!"

The one with the gun had prodded Christian in the back with it; with his companions preceding them so that Christian would have less success at trying to escape, they'd all gone inside and up a flight of stairs. Then the one with the gun had barked out an order in whatever language they spoke. Christian had been seized with a painfully strong grip and made to stand still while someone stuck a needle in his arm and held him for several minutes till whatever they gave him had taken effect. He felt a pleasant wooziness steal over him, then blacked out.

Since that time he'd floated in and out of consciousness, and if he was left alone long enough, he sometimes even had a chance to think a bit, as he did now. Physically he felt pretty good; mentally he was vaguely suspicious of the feeling. Sounds floated all around him; he seemed to be floating among them, amidst the strange jabbering language he kept hearing—a tumbling jumble of vowels that nevertheless sounded oddly familiar to him somehow, interspersed with skipping and sometimes elided consonants. Now and then he heard something recognizable; one of them seemed to be named Lisa, though the accent on the first vowel was oddly prolonged. From time to time he heard the sounds of babies cooing or crying, and in response there would be a woman's voice cooing back.

Christian opened his eyes and tried to turn his head, but it spun on him unexpectedly and he snapped his eyes shut again. He'd been thinking in _jordiska_, because for some reason the effort required to think in English was more than he had the energy to muster up. But if he meant to communicate with these people, he'd have to do it.

"My babies," he muttered. It totally drained him, but it got results. Someone gasped, and he heard an urgent command in that odd language; then a sting pierced his arm. His last thought was a curse in _jordiska_ before he lost all awareness once more.

§ § § -- September 30, 2004

By now it was common knowledge around this end of the island that Christian and the triplets were missing, and through the morning quite a few of Roarke's many employees found some excuse to stop in at the main house and express their hopes that they'd be found soon. After the first few instances of this, Roarke took the opportunity to question people, trying to find out if they had seen anything unusual, anyone suspicious or just something out of place. Naturally, no one had, and Leslie's depression and fear grew apace.

Mid-morning, Maureen came in. "No word?" she asked.

"Nothing," Leslie replied through a shaky sigh.

"Well, this might help," Maureen told her, sitting in front of Roarke's desk. Leslie set aside a stack of mail, and Roarke looked up from his account ledger. "I took Brianna to school this morning, since I wanted to get a few groceries in town on the way back. But when I got out of our driveway, I looked over at your house for some reason, and I saw something stuck in the door. I had Brianna go get it for me." She handed Leslie an envelope. "It could be that ransom note we were talking about yesterday."

Leslie grabbed a letter opener and slit the envelope, then pulled out a sheet of folded paper. It was handwritten, and she read it out loud with occasional difficulty. _"We have decided that now is the ideal time to reveal ourselves. We are the ones who attempted to take you out at the castle in Lilla Jordsö. Though we lost our devoted sisters, we did not give up. And now on Fantasy Island, we have succeeded. We took Prince Christian and your three babies yesterday, and we are holding them until we can get away from here. But we wanted you to know who has robbed you of your happiness, as you came and stole ours, as you stole our father, our oldest brother, and then our mother's sanity. Now you will suffer as we have suffered these last fourteen years. Signed, Antti, Niilo and Liisa Komainen."_

By the time she finished reading, she was shaking violently enough that the paper fell out of her hands and to the floor. She stared at Roarke and whispered, "I was right…I knew it was them. I knew it."

Roarke took a slow, deep breath, released it, then said, "Maureen, would you hand me the page, please." Maureen retrieved it and gave it to him, and he read over it once or twice. Finally he said, "They don't say what their plans are once they make their attempt at escape. You say, Maureen, that this was stuck in the door?"

Maureen nodded. "Brianna didn't have much trouble pulling it out. I'm surprised it didn't fall out. We never would've seen it if it had, I think."

"If, as they say, they are holding Christian and the infants, it will mean they will have to have formula and diapers for the children at the very least," Roarke noted, folding the sheet of paper. "I think, Leslie, you may feel better if you can do a little investigating. When you go to the post office, you might consider stopping at the grocery and asking the clerks and others there if they happen to remember anyone making unusually large purchases of baby paraphernalia—not only diapers and formula, but also bottles and other such things."

Leslie nodded, visibly trying to gather herself. "God only knows what they're doing to Christian," she whispered, swallowing hard, then opening her eyes. "And I wish there were some way to find out where they are."

"We will," Maureen said firmly. "Sooner or later they'll make a mistake and it'll undo their whole scheme. Don't forget, if you need something, just let me know." She stood up, then rolled her eyes. "What a dope I am. Mr. Roarke, could I borrow your phone for a minute? I need to call someone."

"By all means, Maureen," Roarke agreed, and Maureen punched out a number, then asked for someone named Pualani. Put on hold, she grinned at Leslie. "I borrowed a book from her, and I need to take it back so she can read it too. When she lent it to me, she said it was great for getting lost in some other world. Said it helped her drown out the strange noises her weird neighbors were making."

"Weird neighbors?" Leslie echoed, half grinning. "What makes them weird?"

"Heck if I know," said Maureen, chuckling. About to say more, she cut herself off and spoke into the phone. "Hi, Pualani, it's Maureen. When's good for you to have visitors? I just wanted to bring back that book I borrowed." She paused, then said, "Okay, sure…this afternoon sounds great. What time do you get off work?" She made the arrangements, then hung up, thanked Roarke and laid a hand on Leslie's shoulder. "Good luck."

"Thanks for your help, Maureen," Leslie said, and Maureen smiled and left. Roarke, absently turning the folded page over in his fingers, looked up.

"While you're in town," he said, "you might wish to turn this over to the police station. They can contact the police in Lilla Jordsö so that they can make a positive identification of the two women who were killed there."

"Good idea," Leslie murmured. "I have something I want to ask anyway."

After picking up some packages at the post office, she went to the police station and handed over the note; the sheriff was in and looked it over, frowning. "Do you know these people, Miss Leslie?" he asked.

"Yes," Leslie said. "They're the younger siblings of my late first husband."

The sheriff looked up sharply, his face disbelieving. "How did it get down to this?"

"I hope you have some time, Sheriff, because it's a long story," Leslie said with a weary sigh, taking a wooden chair in front of the man's desk and launching into the explanation of her marriage to Teppo, his siblings' and mother's animosity toward her, and their constant taunting and belittling of her. The sheriff listened intently, nodding now and then, frowning when she told him what had happened in Lilla Jordsö. "Now," she concluded, "even though two of the sisters are dead, they came here anyway and kidnapped Christian and the triplets sometime yesterday—probably twoish, I'd estimate, since the babies had a doctor's appointment and Christian took them over. They never came back from that."

The sheriff had been making notes as she spoke; now he looked up. "We'll do some questioning around here and see if anyone's been picking up a lot of baby stuff, especially strangers. It's not such a big island that too many unknowns would drop in here, and your father's guests don't need to frequent anything other than maybe the café, the post office and the gift shop. Can you describe them for me?"

"If you bear with me," Leslie said, inspiration hitting her, "I can give you a picture of Teppo, the one I was married to. The whole family has most of the same facial features—they all have gray eyes, very lean jaws and cleft chins, and they have straight blonde hair. And they're all on the slender side, or at least they were when I knew them."

"That'll be a big help," the sheriff said. "I'll hold the questioning till you can get us the picture." He grinned and added jocularly, "You'd make a pretty fair detective."

"I doubt that," Leslie said with a chuckle. "I'm just lucky enough to have most of the information at hand. I'll be back as soon as I can with that picture." She hesitated a moment in the midst of rising. "Incidentally…I was wondering. Are you allowed to tell me what was stolen from the hospital?"

The sheriff glanced up and shrugged. "It's not classified information, if that's what you're asking. They took a lot of vials, but it turned out to be only a couple of different drugs altogether, after the staff took inventory. They took morphine and something called atropine, whatever that is."

"Oh," Leslie mumbled, rubbing her stomach, which felt as though it had just been flash-frozen. "Thanks." She left the office, thinking maybe she should call the Ordoñezes and see if they could tell her anything about this atropine stuff.

‡ ‡ ‡

Maureen pulled to a stop in front of the building where Pualani lived with her family, glancing around the area. Last year's fire had been a blessing in disguise; the new overseer's house was much more modern and better built than the original had been, and the apartment buildings Roarke had insisted be erected for the local field workers and their families were also high-quality. Pualani, who had grown up in the fishing village, had remarked that it was the nicest place she had ever lived in, and that she especially liked it because now she had space for bookcases to hold her beloved books.

Maureen tapped on the door of her friend's apartment, and Pualani opened it almost immediately, brightening. "Hi, Maureen, come in!" she said, and Maureen grinned at her, slipping inside. The apartment was somewhat sparsely furnished, but immaculate and decorated with family photos and curtains in cheerful colors. This time, Maureen noticed, there were dolls of all sorts strewn around—baby dolls, Barbie dolls and rag dolls, along with a few Bratz dolls. "Oh no, you bought her those bratty things?" Maureen groaned playfully. "They're the only doll my Brianna will even look at."

"I don't know why," Pualani remarked in the same spirit. "They look kind of ugly to me." Both women laughed and sat down at the kitchen table, in a little nook created by a bow window that provided a view of a playground for children, backdropped by the jungle and a partial view of Mount Tutumoa. "How about a little tea?"

Maureen agreed, and in a few minutes they were sipping from tumblers and discussing the book Maureen was returning. They got engrossed enough that the sound of Pualani's baby son crying came as a surprise to them, and they both laughed and went back to the bedroom the children shared. "There's my baby boy," Pualani crooned, lifting the infant from the crib. "Time to eat, huh? Come on, Ethan."

"I still think he's the cutest thing," Maureen remarked. "What does Arielle think of him? Does she get jealous?"

"No, not really. Actually, she loves to help feed him," Pualani said with a grin. She took Ethan back out to the kitchen and prepared his bottle while Maureen held him; just as both women noticed that Pualani's daughter was missing, the door opened and the little girl came in brandishing a dirty white shoe that looked like the sort worn by a nurse.

"Look what I found, Mommy!" she crowed.

Pualani scolded, "Arielle, where'd you get that?"

"In the hall," the child said. "There's a whole buncha shoes in the hallway. Maybe those people forgot and left them."

"Oh dear, it's those strange neighbors of ours," Pualani groaned.

Maureen laughed. "If they're going to leave their shoes in the hallway, they should expect someone to come along and help themselves. Say, Arielle, how about you and I go and put the shoe back, okay?"

Arielle looked surprised. "Why?"

"Because that's not your shoe, Arielle," Pualani said, "and those people will want it back. Give the shoe to Mrs. Harding, so you can come help me feed Ethan."

Reluctantly Arielle handed Maureen the shoe and scampered into the kitchen. Pualani came out with the bottle and peered at Maureen in surprise. "Something wrong?"

"I was just looking at this…" Maureen mumbled, staring at the sole of the shoe. Its tread consisted of narrow, crowded horizontal lines from one end to the other—and just near the edge of the heel was a small, ragged-edged hole, as if the shoe's owner had stepped on a nail. Dark mud was embedded in the grooves between each and every ridge.

"Someone's been playing in the dirt," Pualani remarked jokingly.

"Yeah," Maureen agreed, scowling at the shoe. _The Enstads' dirt, I'll bet!_ She let Pualani take Ethan, barely noticing the action. "Uh…Arielle, honey, where was this shoe again?"

"In the hall," said Arielle. "With lots of other ones."

Pualani said, "Come on, Arielle—you and I and Mrs. Harding are going to take that shoe back to its owners. Let's go." Arielle, looking disappointed, trailed Maureen and Pualani out; Pualani continued to feed Ethan while Maureen carried the shoe. In front of the next-door apartment—where, sure enough, there were two pairs of shoes lined up against the wall beside the door, along with a single shoe that was clearly the mate of the one Arielle had appropriated—Pualani urged Arielle to knock on the door; the child did so with more enthusiasm than was strictly warranted.

It took almost a full minute for the door to open; inside they could hear a baby fussing. A skinny young man with a sharp jaw and lank blond hair peered out at them. "Yes?"

"Go on, Arielle," Pualani prompted.

Arielle said meekly, "I'm sorry I took your shoe, mister."

"What?" the young man said, looking confused.

Maureen displayed the shoe at him. "She noticed the shoes in the hall here and didn't realize they belonged to someone. We just wanted to see that it was returned."

"Oh…" The young man seemed distracted, glancing back over his shoulder before he said, "That's my sister's shoe. Thanks for bringing it back." He leaned into the hallway to take it from Maureen, and it was then that she saw the characteristic cleft chin she recalled seeing in the photo of Teppo. Barely controlling her reaction, she handed the shoe back.

"Sounds hectic in there," Pualani remarked conversationally.

The young man started, then nodded. "Oh yes…sister just had a baby…I must help feed it. Well, thank you again, goodbye." With that he shut the door on them.

"Bye, mister," said Arielle a beat late. She looked up at her mother in consternation. "I wanted to ask if I could help feed their baby."

"Maybe some other time," Pualani said, grinning. "Come on, let's go take care of Ethan first." She led the way back to their apartment.

Inside, Maureen tried to hold her composure till Pualani had sent Arielle to her room with her dolls; then she blurted, "I need to use the phone—is it all right?"

"Of course…but is there something wrong?" Pualani asked.

"Not if I can get through to Mr. Roarke. That's one of the people who kidnapped Leslie's husband and babies. I recognized him when he stuck his head out to get the shoe. He has the same facial features as Leslie's first husband who died. The baby we heard crying in there has to be one of the triplets!"

Pualani, dumbfounded at first, gasped suddenly. "Then hurry, Maureen, make all the phone calls you need to! Oh, I hope they don't realize you know who they are!"

‡ ‡ ‡

Christian had been lying quietly, trying to pretend he was still under the effects of the drug they'd been giving him. He didn't feel quite back to normal, but he was alert enough to process what he heard around him. One of the triplets was crying intermittently, and the voices were still nattering in their odd language; he managed to pick out two males and a female. _Perhaps that's the one they call Lisa, with their strange accent. Though their vowels sound rather like…_ At that moment he realized what language he was hearing. _It's Finnish, that's what it is. Finnish? What a peculiar language to hear on this island…_ And that was when he realized exactly whose hands he and the babies had fallen into.

His eyes popped open at precisely the same moment there came a knock on the door. There were startled exclamations, and Christian watched the three of them argue in frantic whispers before the largest figure shoved one of the others and gave a command. The slight male got up to answer the door; Christian stared, undetected as yet because his captors' attention was devoted to the possibility of being discovered.

"Yes?" asked the young man at the door. It was the first English Christian had heard since initially coming to. Someone said something on the other side of the door, and the young man said blankly, "What?"

As the encounter progressed, Christian wondered if he dared call out or at least sit up. He wasn't sure he had enough strength to make a break for it; and anyway, he didn't want to leave the triplets with these people. About to chance sitting, he was thwarted when the young man suddenly yanked back and closed the door, returning with a shoe in his hand. A new conversation in Finnish ensued, and after a moment or two the voices got frantic. All three jumped up—the woman with one of the babies in her arms—and started out of the room. Christian watched them disappear into one of the bedrooms; then, hoping hard, he pushed himself into a seated position on the floor and tried to get to his feet. He was still dizzy, though, and decided he'd better settle for crawling.

He had almost reached the remaining babies, had gotten close enough to recognize Tobias and Karina, when a sharp male voice demanded, "What are you doing, prince?"

Christian, startled, lost his balance and landed sitting. "Who the hell are you," he demanded, "that you've abducted me and my children? What do you want with us?"

The woman appeared with Susanna in her embrace; the baby was fretting, and Christian recognized it as the onset of hunger. "It's not exactly necessary that you know, but we may as well explain it to you, because you won't live through the night." Christian gawked at her, frozen by horror and disbelief, while she handed Susanna off to the man beside her and went to the big nylon bag that sat on the floor nearby. "It's not quite you or the babies we're targeting, but your wife. She was once married to our oldest brother, and she killed him; so we want revenge."

"Leslie didn't kill your brother," Christian contradicted.

"Shut up!" the woman screeched, and immediately all three triplets began to howl. With shaking arms Christian reached out and lifted Karina, who was closest, trying to calm her down. "Damn you, Antti, can't you quiet that child?" She turned back to her bag and went on, "You see, Prince Christian, we can't let you live, because then you'd try to get your children back. And we simply can't allow that." She came up with a syringe and a vial, and Christian wished he had the strength to grab Tobias, get up, wrest Susanna from the woman and run. As it was, all he could do was sit there, try to keep a grip on Karina with his weakened muscles, and watch the woman fill her syringe and approach him. "Someone came here from the apartment next to this one, and Niilo could see he had been recognized. Now we have to make our escape while we're still free to do it. So as soon as I've emptied this syringe into your arm, we're going to take the infants and get the next charter off this island—and meanwhile, you'll remain behind to die."

Christian tried to twist away, but the woman caught him and clutched him with the iron grip he still recalled from the initial injection. "But for fate's sake, why? Why are you going to kill me and take the babies? Why haven't you dealt with Leslie?"

"You ask too many questions, prince," the woman complained, pushing the needle into his arm. Christian winced, wondering how much knockout drug was in the thing. "But you might like to know what you'll die of. I've been giving you morphine all along, just to keep you quiet and under control. I could have killed you with that, but it seems too much like a bad murder mystery…too easy. You'll die of atropine instead."

"What the hell is…" Christian began, only to forget what he wanted to say when his mouth went dry and began to burn. A debilitating thirst overcame him. "What is this?" he finally demanded, gasping.

The woman tossed aside the empty syringe and relieved him of his daughter. "It's usually used just prior to anesthesia in hospitals. I'm a nurse, luckily for our cause, so I know my drugs. My name is Liisa Komainen, and there watching you is my oldest living brother, Antti. My other brother is Niilo. We all loved our brother Teppo, and Antti was especially close to him. When that bitch you married killed him, we knew we had to get our revenge on her. Soon we'll finally achieve that goal, and Leslie Hamilton will suffer for the rest of her days, exactly as we've suffered ever since she killed our father and brother."

"She never…" Christian began and was shocked to find that he now had trouble speaking. "Need…wadah…"

Antti laughed, rocking Susanna, who had begun to calm down. "You're not likely to live long enough to care if you get any water, prince. Besides, you wouldn't be able to swallow it anyway—try it." Christian's horror and panic increased when he discovered the man was right. The stuff was working pretty quickly on him, and he wondered frantically if he'd even live long enough to watch these monsters abscond with his children.

"We need to get out of here now," Liisa said, standing up. "Niilo, are you ready? I've given the prince the poison—we have to leave now if we have any hope of getting away!"

"Where did you hide the car?" Antti asked, as if inquiring where he'd left his jacket.

"In the trees. If we walk very quickly we can get there and on the road to the dock before the alarm can go out." Niilo appeared from the bedroom and peered in at Christian, who was squinting painfully in the sunlit room. "Is he going blind, Liisa?"

"No, he'll simply wish he were. His pupils won't contract," she said. "Now, Niilo, we can't stall any longer. Get that baby off the floor and let's leave."

"I'll drive," Antti said. "Give me the keys, Niilo, and Liisa, you make sure the babies are strapped in properly. You can wrap them in the blankets on the way."

Christian's vision was blurred as well as overwhelmed by the light, and he could barely see enough to watch them leave with his daughters and son. Once more he tried to get up, but the morphine lingered in his system, adding its effects to the advancing symptoms of atropine poisoning. Panting, squinting, burning up, slowly succumbing to a combination of panic and a creeping sense of madness brought on by the drug, Christian toppled over onto the floor, his last coherent thought a flash of pleading to Leslie before his mind was no longer his own.


	6. Chapter 6

§ § § -- September 30, 2004

"They're at the pineapple plantation?" Leslie cried, stunned. "We'll get down there right away!" She hung up and turned to Roarke. "Maureen called from her friend's place at the plantation—her friend's little girl found a shoe that was the source of those prints at the hospital and in our flower bed. When they took the shoe back, the guy who answered the door had Teppo's facial features. Father, we have to hurry!"

Roarke alerted the island police before hastening out the door with Leslie, who took the wheel. Once on the Ring Road and past town, she floored the accelerator, pushing the jeep up to eighty-five and beyond. "You'd better be extremely careful, Leslie," Roarke warned her over the rush of the wind through the vehicle's interior.

"I have to be," she retorted, never taking her eyes from the road. "I could be the only chance Christian and my children have." Roarke settled back in silent approval, keeping an eye on her, proud of her for maintaining a fierce control.

At this speed they reached the pineapple plantation in a little more than fifteen minutes. Out front they saw Maureen and a pretty native islander, who held a baby and had a little girl by her side. Maureen waved her arms frantically and ran to the jeep as Leslie hit the brakes. "It's a second-floor apartment," she said breathlessly. "We came out here to wait for you once we started hearing someone moaning really loudly in there. It was spooking Arielle." She made quick introductions, and Roarke and Leslie both nodded at Pualani before rushing inside and up the stairs, with Maureen on their heels.

Emerging into the hall, they heard the noise Maureen had mentioned—a voice wailing and groaning, sounding tortured. "That's Christian!" Leslie shrieked and fled down the hall; Maureen dodged around Roarke and managed to get out ahead of her friend, grabbing the knob of the door in question. She rattled it, but it was locked.

"Damn," Maureen snapped, disgusted. "Those sleazebags. What in hell could they have done to him, anyway?"

The sounds Christian was making inside the apartment scared Leslie so much that her tears were already flowing, but she struggled to speak clearly. "They might have given him something," she said thickly. "I spoke with the sheriff earlier today and asked him what was stolen from the hospital, and he said they took morphine and something called atropine. He didn't know what it was, so I called Fernando's office. He said it's used on patients before they're given anesthesia for surgery, and he told me a severe overdose can be fatal."

Roarke caught up with them. "One moment," he said, "while I unlock the door." Maureen and Leslie stood back, and he narrowed his dark eyes, concentrating carefully on the knob. The women heard a distinct click after a few seconds. Leslie threw the door open and they rushed inside, where they saw Christian lying on the floor, his whole body writhing back and forth in slow motion, with one knee drawn up and a hand over his eyes, panting heavily and straining his vocal cords as if trying to form words.

"Christian, it's me!" Leslie cried and knelt beside him, shaking him. "Stop, please, it's just me!" But she had no effect on him, and Roarke had to reach down and pull her to her feet to restrain her.

"He can't control himself, Leslie—I believe you're right about their having administered a drug," he said, hugging her briefly when she broke down into panicky sobs. "Wait here a moment and I might be able to bring him around enough for him to walk unassisted." He knelt in Leslie's place beside the delirious prince and laid a hand over Christian's forehead, frowning in alarm when he registered how hot and dry the skin was. Closing his eyes, he concentrated carefully, but after only a few seconds had to pull back.

"What's wrong, Mr. Roarke?" Maureen asked.

"The drug is too strong," Roarke said grimly, rising to his feet. "I can sense what's happening within Christian's mind—he seems to be hallucinating about something—but I can't break through to his conscious, lucid self. All we can do is get him to the hospital as quickly as possible and hope that they can give him whatever antidote applies to this drug."

"Leslie, you and I could try carrying him," Maureen offered. "You get his hands and I'll grab his ankles…" Before she could go on, they heard voices in the hallway, and seconds later two policemen appeared. Roarke explained their need, and both men nodded, easily lifting Christian off the floor between them and carrying him out of the building with Roarke, Leslie and Maureen following.

"Father?" Leslie began. "What about the triplets? Christian was the only one—"

Roarke raised a hand. "Just get him to the hospital, Leslie," he said. "Make all the haste you safely can, and I'll have these men notify the rest of the force so that you are not stopped on your way. These officers will put out the word to detain anyone trying to board the charter with infants; then they will investigate here, and I'll ride back with them." Leslie nodded; the policemen secured Christian in the passenger seat of the jeep, strapping him in with the seatbelt fastened as tightly as they could pull it, and Leslie threw up a giant foggy dust cloud on her way out. As soon as she got off the rutted dirt track and onto pavement, she sent the jeep roaring forward. Christian's eerie moans stoked her panic, and at one point she glanced down at the speedometer to find she had topped a hundred miles an hour. She never once let up on the gas pedal for fear of losing Christian. To avoid having to slow for pedestrians and bicyclists in town, she took the shortcut along the Old Swamp Road, which ran down the middle of the island, and then raced east once more along the southern section of the Ring Road, trying now to push the vehicle even harder—for when she slowed to make the turn from the Old Swamp Road onto the Ring Road, she noticed the absence of Christian's moans and risked a look at him, long enough to see that he'd fallen unconscious.

She didn't know how she managed to get to the hospital without giving in to tears, but she did; she sailed into the parking lot leaning on the horn. After a minute or so several medicos rushed out with a stretcher. As they began unstrapping Christian, Leslie asked, "How did you know we'd need a stretcher?"

"The police notified us you were on your way with Prince Christian, Miss Leslie," said one of the orderlies. "You think he's been poisoned?"

"Yes," she said, shaking. "I don't want to leave him—please, let me go in with him—"

"You'd better park the jeep first, Miss Leslie," the orderly advised her, barely looking up long enough to meet her panicked stare while helping to secure Christian onto the stretcher. "We'll need to get Prince Christian stabilized first, make sure he has a fighting chance to survive this, and then maybe you can go in and sit with him. But right now we can't have any non-essential personnel in the way."

"I can tell you what he was probably injected with," Leslie persisted frantically. "I'm sure you know what was stolen from the storage rooms the other day. That's what you're likely to find in his system."

The orderlies glanced briefly at one another; the first one said, "We'll mention it, Miss Leslie. You'd better park and come inside to wait." They bore Christian off at a run, and Leslie swung the jeep into the first open parking spot, killed the engine and raced into the hospital just in time to see Christian's stretcher disappear through the doors out of the waiting room. Stymied and sick with fright, she fell into a chair, hunched over, hid her face in her hands and gave in at last to her terror and sense of helplessness.

She was still sobbing softly into her hands when another hand settled between her shoulder blades. Lifting her face, Leslie registered Roarke sitting beside her. "There's been no word?" he asked gently.

"No," she choked, coughing a few times and gulping back a sob or two. "I don't even know how long I've been here."

Roarke smiled gently. "Then perhaps this will help to raise your spirits," he offered. "On my way back to this end of the island with the police, we received word that the Komainens had been detained at the plane dock with the triplets. The attendants and several locals who were making an off-island trip made certain none of them escaped, and the police were able to take the Komainens into custody. They are caring for the triplets, and all three of the babies appear to be unharmed and in good health."

"Oh…that's…" Leslie could get no more than those two words out of her mouth before she broke down again, this time with relief. Roarke hugged her close and patted her back till she could get herself together enough to control her tears once more.

She was beginning to calm down a bit when he saw a doctor emerge from the interior of the hospital and approach them. Gently he nudged his daughter, and they both stood up when she saw who it was. "What can you tell us, doctor?" Roarke asked.

The doctor sighed. "We can't say with any certainty whether Prince Christian will pull through," he said. "One of our orderlies told us Miss Leslie had mentioned her suspicion that the stolen drugs had been used to poison him, and when we analyzed a sample of his blood we found she was right. Unfortunately, whoever injected him gave him a combination of atropine and morphine; that's why he fell into a coma more quickly than he would have on pure atropine. We've administered Naloxone for the morphine and have him on oxygen to help his labored respiration." He saw Leslie's pale face and enormous eyes. "Once the Naloxone takes care of the morphine—which should be in a few hours at most—we can tackle the atropine. There's a drug we can use to help counteract it, but we don't want to risk it reacting unfavorably with the Naloxone. And I can tell you this for certain: if Prince Christian is still with us at this time tomorrow, then his chances are very good."

Leslie stood for a moment taking this in, focusing on the doctor's final sentence, even sparing a few seconds to weigh the worthiness of asking Roarke for a glimpse into the future before dismissing the thought. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. Finally she came up with a question that she thought would sound reasonably intelligent: "How is he now? Is he still unconscious?"

"Yes, because of the morphine," the doctor said. "But that may change when it's out of his system. What was his condition when you found him, Mr. Roarke?"

"I believe he was hallucinating," Roarke said. "He was feverish and covering his eyes."

The doctor nodded. "Fever is one of the symptoms of atropine poisoning, and he was covering his eyes because the pupils were highly dilated and fixed that way. Once he's out of his coma, the hallucinations may return, and there could be other symptoms as well. As I said, if he survives twenty-four hours, he has a high chance of recovery."

"So you're telling me there's no point in my staying with him, then?" Leslie asked.

"You can go in and see him, Miss Leslie," the doctor said, "but I'd advise staying only a few minutes. Once he's out of his coma, he won't know you anyway, and seeing him would only scare you. My suggestion is to get whatever sleep you can tonight—Mr. Roarke, you may want to assist her with that—and then give us a call tomorrow morning for an update."

"We'll do that, then, doctor," Roarke agreed. "Thank you. Leslie, why don't you go and see Christian for a few minutes. I'll wait here, and then we'll go to the police station. The triplets are there, and they'll need you more than Christian does at the moment."

"Yes, the triplets," Leslie said, blinking. "Okay…I'll be back out in a little bit, Father." She followed the doctor down the hall and gave him a small, grateful smile when he stepped aside to let her into the darkened room where they had put Christian.

She drifted to his bedside and stared at him. He lay still and quiet, eyes closed, with an oxygen mask over his face. His breathing was slow and a bit labored, and his glossy dark hair was lank. Leslie reached over and lifted his hand, then gasped softly to herself; his skin seemed to be burning under her fingertips. Her sore, swollen eyes filled with tears all over again and she murmured helplessly, "Oh, my love, what have they done to you?"

For a moment Leslie sat there clinging to Christian's hand, feeling the heat radiating from him, and then spoke anyway, even though she knew he wouldn't hear. She hoped fervently that she'd have to repeat herself later. "Christian, my love, Father told me the triplets are fine. The Komainens didn't harm them in any way. But I'll tell you something—I'm going to find out just why they took you and our babies, and when you come back to us, I'll tell you what they said. You've got to come back, Christian. We all need you. I can't lose you—it'd be a blow I don't think I could recover from." She tipped aside and planted a kiss on his forehead. "I love you, Christian. I love you so much. Please come back." Her throat closed up and she shut her eyes a moment, till she managed to get herself under control; then she focused on him again, taking in his face. "You can beat this, my darling, I know you can. I want them to tell me tomorrow that you're okay, that you thwarted those monsters…"

"Miss Leslie? I'm afraid that's all the time we can give you," a nurse said from the doorway. Leslie looked around and sighed quietly in resignation.

"Fight it, my love," she said softly, squeezing Christian's hand, then reluctantly letting go and moving slowly for the door. The nurse smiled sympathetically and handed her a clear plastic bag containing garments, along with Christian's Rolex and wedding ring.

"These are the clothes Prince Christian was wearing when you brought him in," she said. "Be optimistic and think in terms of bringing him a fresh outfit when he's ready to go home. His health is good and that's in his favor."

"What kind of odds are there that he'll get through those first twenty-four hours?" Leslie asked, almost afraid to hear the response.

The nurse pulled Christian's door shut and gently ushered her down the hallway. "It really depends on the individual," she said. "Like I said, his health is good, and that should count for something. We'll do everything we can for him."

Leslie subsided finally, realizing that there was just no more she could do, and joined Roarke in the waiting room. "Let's go get the triplets, Father."

Roarke smiled and nodded. "An excellent idea. I expect they will be glad to see you."

"Only if they're hungry," Leslie said with a half-grin.

Her father laughed, guiding her out the door. "They may be only four months old, my child, but they know you and their father by now," he assured her. "I'm certain that when you walk in and they see you, you'll be greeted with some very wide smiles."

Less than ten minutes later they parked in front of the police station; Roarke opened the door and let Leslie in ahead of him. Instantly they heard the wailing of three babies, and Leslie gasped again. Their entrance caught the attention of Mei-Lian Ching, the receptionist, who beamed when she saw who had come in. "Don't worry, Miss Leslie, the babies are just fine," she said. "They'll want diaper changes and undoubtedly something to eat, but other than that they're in perfect shape." She grinned. "Not to mention adorable."

That finally made Leslie laugh a little. "So then they're just uncomfortable?"

"And probably missing their mommy," Mei-Lian said with a cheerful nod. "I'll have the guys bring them out. They've all been charmed to death—and two of them were confirmed bachelors up to this point. Those babies may have made a couple of converts." On Roarke's and Leslie's laughter, she got up and stuck her head in a back door, and a moment later out came three policemen, each one toting a crying triplet.

"I need to hold all three," Leslie blurted, her tears coming back as if someone had flipped a switch. "I have to."

Roarke smiled and shook his head indulgently. "Sit here, Leslie," he said, pushing her gently into a chair. Mei-Lian dug a key out of her desk drawer, unlocked the door of the cell adjacent to the front room and swiped a pillow off one of the bunks, placing this over Leslie's lap. Then while Leslie held onto the pillow, the three policemen settled their little charges side by side onto it. As soon as the last triplet was there, she wrapped her arms around them, pillow and all, and closed her eyes, nuzzling their heads in turn, her tears wetting their hair. The policemen stood by watching with slight smiles; Mei-Lian's eyes were moist too, and Roarke glanced at them in quick succession before sitting beside Leslie and reaching out to smooth the hair on each baby's head for a moment. He let Leslie have her reunion with her children for a minute or so, then prompted quietly, "I think it's time you brought the children back to the main house with me, so that they can be fed and changed and given baths. They may be essentially unharmed, but I detect certain signs that tell me all three babies will be far happier with a little care from you."

"Other than the crying?" Mei-Lian said teasingly as Leslie looked up.

"And the smell?" one of the cops added, making everyone burst out laughing. With a broad grin, he said, "I was just teasing, Miss Leslie, but they can definitely use a diaper change, like Mr. Roarke said. We've got their kidnappers in the maximum-security cell in the back room, and there's a twenty-four-hour guard on the younger brother—he turns out to have quite a criminal record back in Finland, and one of his specialties is picking locks. It seems they've been busy since you came back home all those years ago, Miss Leslie."

"Sounds like it to me too," Leslie agreed, her voice a little thick yet. "I want answers from them, but tomorrow's soon enough for that. My babies come first."

"How about Prince Christian?" Mei-Lian asked.

Leslie swallowed back a surge of fear. "He's still with us for now. The doctor told us if he survives twenty-four hours, he has a good shot at recovering. But nobody knows if he'll make it." She drew in a breath. "I'm definitely planning to press charges against them. They spent long enough intimidating me. It's time I fought back."


	7. Chapter 7

§ § § -- October 1, 2004

The triplets, once bathed, changed and fed, had had a peaceful night; having had their most basic needs met, they became contented and sleepy, and conked right out once Leslie settled them in their bassinets. Leslie's night had been less restful, and by seven she was wide awake and could no longer contain herself. She had to know whether Christian had made it through the night. She made a quick check on her children and saw that Karina was awake, though her brother and sister slept on; the infant smiled broadly at her, and Leslie grinned back, glad at least that her children were safe so that she could devote all her hope to Christian. "Come on, sweetie, Mommy's going to call the hospital and find out if Daddy's getting better." She slipped out of bed, lifted Karina from the bassinet and padded down to Roarke's study.

She shouldn't have been surprised to see him at the desk; he looked up and smiled at sight of her with the baby on her shoulder. "Good morning, Leslie and Karina."

Leslie shook her head, chuckling. "She's not even looking at you, and you still know which girl it is. Karina, sweetie, your grandfather's a very unusual man, all right." Roarke chuckled too, and she sat in one of the chairs, settling Karina in her lap so that the baby could watch Roarke. "I wanted to call the hospital…"

Roarke nodded. "I knew you would be anxious, and I did that as soon as I came down this morning. They say Christian is stable and holding his own, and that the morphine wore off completely sometime past nine last evening." He sobered a little. "Of course, he is still under the effects of the atropine, and I am told that once the morphine had worn off, Christian had at least two convulsive episodes during the night. They've administered an antidotal drug and given him Valium to control the convulsions, and as of fifteen minutes ago he was resting quietly. He's unconscious, but that is due to the antidote's effect, and it allows him to rest. So try not to worry."

Leslie sighed heavily. "It's hard not to, but at least he's still with us." She met Roarke's gaze. "I think once I've fed and changed the triplets this morning and we've had breakfast, I want to confront the Komainens. They spent most of my marriage to Teppo making my life miserable in some way or another, and I'm fed up with not knowing why they persist in this…vendetta against me."

Roarke nodded. "That's understandable. To tell you the truth, I find myself curious about it as well. Very well, let me know when you're ready to go, and we'll leave the triplets under the supervision of Mariki and her staff."

It was not quite ten when they left the house, with the triplets in the kitchen being entertained by the women working there. They decided to walk; the morning was warm and sunny, with just a few small cotton-puff cumulus dotting the expanse of blue over their heads. The walk helped Leslie relax and think of some of the questions she wanted to ask; by the time they reached the police station she was reasonably composed.

Mei-Lian smiled when they came in. "Are the babies feeling better?" she asked.

"They're much happier," Leslie said, "and I'm a lot more relieved, though I'm still very scared for Christian." She glanced toward the back of the front room and scowled. "If I lose him, those three in there will discover a whole new level of hatred—mine for them, which is going to far outstrip theirs for me."

"It's hard to blame you there," admitted Mei-Lian. "Well, good luck, Leslie." She let Leslie and Roarke through the door into the back room, where four policemen stood, two of them clearly about to go out on their regular patrol. They greeted Roarke and Leslie; then the patrolmen quietly wished her luck and departed. The sheriff sat behind his desk, while the deputy peered across the room at the maximum-security cell where the Komainen siblings were being held. Unlike the other cells, whose front walls into the main rooms consisted of bars, that room was fronted by a solid wall, with a door that was operated by a touch pad beyond the reach of prisoners inside.

"They've been pretty quiet," the deputy observed, "but I have a feeling that once they see you, Miss Leslie, there'll be a lot of invective. They seem to have the impression that they succeeded in killing Prince Christian. We haven't disabused them of the notion yet—we figured you might like to see their reactions when you tell them the news." He grinned a little, and Leslie chuckled soundlessly. "Anytime you're ready."

Leslie turned to Roarke. "Will you stay, Father?"

"Of course, Leslie," he assured her. "After what they have done, I have no intention of leaving you to their tender mercies. Deputy, if you'll do the honors…"

The deputy nodded and crossed the room to the cell. The door here was simply a large rectangle of narrowly-set vertical bars, with three horizontal bars at the top, in the middle and at the bottom for bracing and stability. Roarke and Leslie sat down a safe distance beyond the possible reach of anyone inside, and the deputy said tersely, "Okay, you three, you have visitors."

Leslie watched with a carefully expressionless face as the three prisoners got off their bunks and gathered at the door. The moment they spied her, their faces filled with loathing that Leslie felt sure was no less intense than hers for them. "Well, look who's here," sneered the slight young man. Leslie recognized Niilo, the second-youngest of the Komainen family and the youngest boy. "You must enjoy our abuse."

"Look what we have here," Leslie replied evenly, meeting his glare. "A career loser."

"So is he dead yet?" demanded the young woman impatiently. Liisa Komainen, Leslie noticed, might have been pretty if not for the cruel glint in her gray eyes. They'd all been like that, she recalled. Teppo and his siblings had shared enough facial features that there was no mistaking they were related: they all had the slight cleft chin, the fine, dead-straight light blonde hair, the gray eyes, the lean, sharply carved jaws. And somehow, the five youngest had all had the same cruel gleam that Leslie now saw in Liisa's eyes.

Unexpectedly Roarke spoke. "I'm surprised you don't know, young lady. After all, I understand you are trained as a nurse, and surely you remember what dosage you gave Christian in your attempt to kill him."

Leslie stared at him. "She's a nurse? I'd never trust her in any hospital!"

"How did you know that?" Liisa demanded, as if she hadn't heard Leslie.

"I know a great many things," Roarke replied calmly. "You are on my island, and I make it a point to know all I need to know about anyone who wishes to come here. When my daughter realized it was you three who had taken her husband and children—well before you wrote her that note, I might add—I asked her to tell me about her life while she was living in Finland; and when we received the note, I made further inquiries. I find it reprehensible that you wasted your medical training on petty revenge, Miss Komainen."

While Liisa gawked at him, momentarily stunned speechless, Niilo folded his arms over his chest. "What else do you know, then?"

"Plenty," Roarke assured him. "I know full well that you've ordered your lives around a worthless vendetta based on a series of lies fabricated by you."

Niilo exploded at that. "She killed our father and our brother! She deserves to be punished for that, and we attempted to deliver that punishment!"

"You dirty little crook," Leslie lashed out, losing her cool. "You were already showing signs of turning into a juvenile delinquent even back when I was married to Teppo. You were a school bully from your first day, and generally you were just a little insect I'd have been more than happy to step on. I can't say I'm surprised that you went into a life of crime. You seem to be as insane as your mother was."

She watched with a faint smile while Niilo's face reddened and he began to spit invective at her in Finnish. The tall, bulky male, Antti, rolled his eyes and cuffed his younger brother so hard on the cheek that even the cops winced. "So, the frightened little girl has learned to fight," he observed almost lazily, scanning Leslie from his vantage point against the doorjamb. Niilo, thrown to the floor by Antti's blow, slowly reached up and massaged his face with great care.

"You could say that," Leslie agreed tonelessly. She studied him for a moment, recalling him as the most intellectual of the family. It seemed incongruous with his bulk, since Antti Komainen had been a diligent bodybuilder in his younger days; but he was a very intelligent, somewhat introspective man, who rarely said anything without thinking about it first. His insults and accusations had cut deeply, and even now she had to hide her nerves, for fear he'd deliver another stinging blow. His insults had been nothing if not original, even if they hadn't been true.

Antti said nothing for a moment, still giving her a thorough once-over; then he asked, "Tell me, now, how could a scheming, icy-hearted little killer such as you attract a prince? You were nothing—some useless little orphan girl from the end of the earth, not worthy of our brother, to say nothing of a crown prince from a ruling family."

Riled already, Leslie lost a little more of her calm. "That does it!" she snapped, shooting out of her chair in an instant. "I'm sick beyond belief of listening to your lies about me! Where did you get the stupid idea that I killed anyone in your family? Why do you insist on believing your own filthy lies?" She saw Antti's little smile and knew she'd lost yet another round to him, but at the moment she didn't care.

"They are not lies," Liisa spat. "They're the truth. You're a killer and you know it."

"Prove it," Leslie spat back at her. "Right here and now—prove it."

"The proof lies in the ground," Antti said, still in that lazy voice, as if somehow Leslie were the prisoner and he her interrogator. "Our father perished on this island nearly twenty years ago, and you allowed it to happen."

"Is that so?" Leslie retorted. "I'd like to know where you get your information, since you think you know everything. You weren't even here when it happened. Do you have some kind of ESP, or did you consult your crystal ball?"

Liisa muttered something in Finnish; Antti, looking astonished, stared at her. Finally he nodded once or twice, as if in approval. "Hmm…so the kitten has claws. Perhaps even a bit of a brain in that silly head."

"Everything you touch is doomed," Liisa broke in, sounding a little manic now. "You bring death everywhere you go, Leslie Hamilton. Why did you have to insinuate yourself into Teppo's life and condemn him to an early grave?"

Her second sentence froze Leslie, and out of nowhere she remembered her initial refusal of Christian's marriage proposal because of her belief that she was a jinx. Her sisters, her mother, her grandmother, Teppo, Tattoo… "No," she whispered. "Not again."

"You will cease your juvenile attacks, young lady," Roarke said sternly, his voice laced with a carefully controlled anger, "and you and your brothers will listen to the truth. If you refuse to believe it of Leslie, then perhaps you'll believe it of me. The day your father died, Leslie and I found him and your mother unconscious in their bungalow and Teppo missing. We had no way of determining how long they had been so. On my order, Leslie called for an ambulance, then promptly left the bungalow to search for your brother. It was I who stayed with your parents and followed the ambulance to the hospital. Unfortunately, the demon possessing Teppo had done too much damage for your father to survive."

"Why should we believe you?" Antti wanted to know. "After all, you're an influential man with your own island, and it's said you have strange powers—including the power to brainwash those who live here into being blindly loyal to you. What reason is there for us to accept what you say?"

"Not only that, but Leslie's your daughter, and of course you're going to believe her side of the story," put in Niilo from the floor. His voice sounded odd, as if Antti had knocked out some of his teeth, but he was understandable.

Roarke regarded them with a glint of pity in his dark eyes. "It appears that you'll accept nothing less than the most drastic possible testimony," he observed quietly. Leslie stared apprehensively at him, and for the first time the Komainens looked doubtful. Roarke took in their reactions, smiled at Leslie, then turned to the deputy and the sheriff. "If you two gentlemen would kindly leave us alone here for a few moments," he requested, "I will have Leslie summon you when we are ready again."

"Mr. Roarke, are you very sure?" the deputy asked.

"I know what I am doing," Roarke assured him. "Thank you for your concern."

"Come on, Bailey," the sheriff said, rising and heading for the door. "Mr. Roarke can take care of himself…and Miss Leslie too. Let's go." The deputy shrugged and preceded the sheriff out the door into the front room.

When the sheriff had pulled the door shut behind him, Roarke told Leslie to close the slats of the window blinds. Then she came to stand beside him while the room darkened even beyond the dimness created by the closed blinds. Only Roarke stood in a dim pool of light, his dark eyes open but unfocused, face raised in mute appeal. The light reflected just enough off nearby objects that Leslie could see the Komainens staring at Roarke, looking bewildered and distinctly nervous. _Good,_ she thought, _at least they have enough sense to respect Father and what he can do._ Even Niilo, apparently the least sane of them, looked wary.

Perhaps five full minutes passed, and just when the Komainens began to exhibit impatience and skepticism, two forms shimmered into life almost directly in front of their cell door. Liisa screamed and stumbled backward; Antti and Niilo gaped openmouthed. Leslie recognized Teppo and Jaakko Komainen, their forms slightly indistinct and transparent, but very clearly there. Suddenly fearful, unsure of how Teppo's ghost would receive her—and of how she felt about him, knowing that Christian was in fact the love of her life—she edged away, trying to lose herself in the deeper darkness.

"It seems you have trouble here, Mr. Roarke," remarked Jaakko Komainen in the same faintly uncertain English Leslie remembered hearing so long ago. "My children have certainly gone to low things in these years."

"I am afraid so, yes, Mr. Komainen," Roarke agreed regretfully. "Perhaps you and your son can explain the truth of matters to them, in light of the harm they have attempted to cause my daughter and her family."

"She killed you, _Isä!"_ Niilo shouted from the floor. "Tell him how that little scheming bitch killed you and then killed Teppo!"

"You will close your filthy mouth, Niilo Komainen!" roared his father's ghost, his voice filling the entire room. All three of the prisoners cringed. "More, you will now listen to the truth!" He switched to Finnish so that he could repeat Roarke's words in a language neither he nor his children could misconstrue the meaning of. Leslie watched their faces as he spoke; Antti looked aghast, and Liisa's eyes overflowed with tears. Niilo stared in disbelief, still lying on the floor cradling his injured cheek.

When he finished, Antti and Liisa looked at each other, both plainly in shock. But Niilo refused to be convinced. "What about Teppo?" he yelled. "I know she killed him!"

"You're still the same little fool you always were, Niilo," Teppo's ghost said in a weary voice. "Leslie didn't kill me, either. When _Äiti_ took her last ramble through the woods, if you'll remember, we all split up to look for her, and Leslie and I went together. I'll never know if it was a deliberate thing, or if Lempo orchestrated it, but we found her on the other side of a clearing that we should have known was suspicious. I called to her and she refused to come join us, so I went to get her. That's when Lempo attacked and killed me. Leslie was no more than a bystander, and there was absolutely nothing she could do. The three of you and Kerttu and Ilta have all wasted your money and your lives trying to punish someone who never deserved it. Now that you've been stupid enough to carry through with your lunatic folly, you can damned well take the punishment you have coming to you!"

"We only meant to avenge you, Teppo," Liisa said in tearful appeal.

"There was nothing to avenge, you little idiot," Teppo told her, sounding exasperated. "It seems to me that madness runs in the family—first _Äiti_, then the lot of you, from Antti on down. I wouldn't blame Mr. Roarke if he suggested the death penalty for you three, for your diabolical plot. And if your murder attempt succeeds, he'll have all the more reason to do so. Now that you know the truth—and Niilo, you useless weed, be assured that it _is_ the truth—you have no hope of clemency left. If Mr. Roarke doesn't push for death, then I don't doubt Leslie will. You're at her mercy now, you three."

Liisa began to sob, and Antti stood in silence, head hanging. Niilo muttered in his own tongue but otherwise didn't protest further. Jaakko's ghost nodded his head once in satisfaction, thanked Roarke and promptly disappeared; but Teppo's specter remained. He turned to Roarke and requested, "Might I speak to Leslie a moment?"

"If she agrees," Roarke said.

Leslie watched Teppo's ghost approach her; her stomach danced within her, and she felt her pulse and breathing accelerate with trepidation. Teppo must have seen it, for he chuckled. "Relax, Leslie," he said. "I know all about your life now."

"You do?" she asked inanely, gaping at him. He still looked like the lean 27-year-old he had been when Lempo had killed him, and it took her back to a time and a place she had long preferred not to revisit.

"Oh yes," he said. He studied her thoughtfully for about ten seconds, then smiled, as if resigned. "You're very much in love with your prince, Leslie, aren't you? Your whole life revolves around him. I see a difference in you. I know you're older now, but that's not the whole story. You're very happy with Prince Christian and those babies of yours. I can see that they're the center of your existence, in a way I never could have been."

"Yeah," Leslie admitted shyly, with a tiny sigh. "It's true, Teppo. I still don't know just what Christian did, but I do know that I love him more than I ever thought I was able to love anyone. If he dies…"

Teppo nodded slowly. "I understand," he said quietly. "Don't feel guilty for giving him your whole heart, Leslie. I'm glad you were finally able to move on, to get past that silly jinx problem you had and to take another chance on love and life. I hope he does make it; he obviously is the best thing that ever happened to you."

"I was afraid you'd…" Leslie began.

Teppo grinned and said, "Be jealous? Of course I'm jealous. But there's nothing I can do about it. Look at me—I'm a ghost." He laughed at Leslie's startled giggle. "And no, I'm not going to haunt you. I've got other places to go. You just be happy, Princess Leslie Enstad, and live the fullest life you can."

"I didn't think you'd understand," Leslie admitted. "Thank you for that."

"Anytime," Teppo said and smiled again. "I could've been a better husband to you when I was alive, but we were both too young to know that. You're much better off with your prince. I just wanted you to know that you have all my best wishes."

"Thank you, Teppo," Leslie said again. "Go in peace."

"Thanks," Teppo said, smiled once more, then turned away. "Mr. Roarke, I'm ready now. Is there anything else you need?"

"I believe you have accomplished what we needed, Teppo," Roarke said. "I am grateful for your assistance. As Leslie said, go in peace."

"You as well, Mr. Roarke," Teppo replied, then walked a couple of steps towards the cell his siblings were in before vanishing. The room's dim lighting returned, and Leslie wandered toward the window to open the slats on the blinds again, amazed at what had just happened. It had been the strangest thing in the world, staring her deceased first husband in the face and discovering that he not only knew she was more in love with Christian than she'd been with him, but that he gave his blessing to it. Her stomach was still jittery with nerves and surprise, and she felt very peculiar indeed. It was going to take a while for the whole thing to really sink in.


	8. Chapter 8

§ § § -- October 1, 2004

Roarke had her bring the sheriff and deputy back in, then regarded the now-subdued Komainen siblings. "Have you anything you wish to say?" he asked.

Niilo merely glared up at him, but Liisa and Antti were clearly defeated. "We may as well begin from the first day," Antti said. "In the first ten years that passed after Teppo died and Leslie left Finland, we were content to think that she was well gone and out of our lives, and we would never have to deal with her again. Occasionally Niilo would make a case for returning to this island to exhume Teppo's body a second time and take it back for reburial in Finland, but the rest of us preferred to leave things as they lay."

"And then in 2001, the news of Prince Christian's marriage to his third wife got out," Liisa said, her voice shaky and thick with tears. "Imagine how stunned we were to see that his beloved new bride was none other than our brother's widow. We already hated her for causing two deaths in our family—so we believed—and to see her come into such a good fortune was too much for us to bear. From that day we began to plot revenge."

Antti continued, "Five of us saved our money, bided our time, made our plans. We three were in on the scheme, along with our sisters Kerttu and Ilta. Only our sister Mielikki refused to have any part in it. Perhaps Teppo trusted her more than any of the rest of us, for she said he had confided in her and told her exactly what happened with our father. When we told her of our plans, she stated that she would disown us if we carried them out. I expect that if we are extradited to Finland, we can find no help from her."

"We don't need her," Niilo snarled. "I can pick any lock on earth. No prison will ever hold me. You'll see…"

"Shut your mouth," Antti ordered. "Teppo was right…you're as mad as _Äiti_. You see, Mr. Roarke, madness has appeared in our mother's family for quite a few generations. It's unpredictable as to who will be affected, but with a family as large as ours I'm somewhat surprised that so far only Niilo seems to have inherited it. In any case, it took time to save the money we needed to sustain ourselves and buy the equipment we needed to make our plans reality; and as well, the younger ones couldn't agree on exactly what we should do nor when to do it."

"Then we heard the news about Prince Christian helping to find his country's first royal crown," Liisa added, "and that there would be a ceremony to restore his title to him and to crown Leslie and their babies. We thought there would never be a better time; so we five flew to Lilla Jordsö, rented a horrible, cheap little apartment in a bad part of the capital city, and polished our plot. But we hadn't saved as much money as we had thought. Our mother is still living, irretrievably insane, and the expenses for her care ate at our savings."

"So we ran out of money sooner than we expected to," Antti said. "We had to act quickly before we lost the opportunity. Kerttu was our expert at stealth and sneaking into and out of protected grounds without being noticed, so we sent her to the castle to find a weak spot, some easy way for us to get in and attack Leslie. When she told us that security had all the walls covered and that we would have to get in from the ocean if we wanted to do so undetected, we decided that a straightforward attack was our only choice."

"We took the automatic firearms we had purchased in the capital from a military supply store—Antti is a sergeant in the Finnish army—and as a group, we stormed the castle," Liisa said. "We had scoured the garbage of rich people in the capital and managed to salvage a discarded invitation to the event, and I was chosen to attend, since only one person per invitation was admitted. I was to open the main entrance to let the others in."

"But it backfired on us," Antti went on. "We ran in firing, with Niilo and Kerttu in the lead, Ilta and I behind them. We thought we had prepared ourselves, but there was extra security at the castle entrance, and they returned fire. They outnumbered us, and I am afraid they caught us less prepared than we meant to be. Kerttu and Ilta were hit and both died at the scene. Niilo and Liisa and I could only flee."

"You were the person in white who ran into the south wing of the castle," Leslie said suddenly to Liisa. "You must have escaped through the garages."

"Yes, I did," Liisa said, trying to wipe her wet face. "I joined Antti and Niilo outside the castle grounds, and we retreated into the woods to hide and to regroup. We had done all we knew to do, and yet it had failed. Antti was ready to give up, and I wanted to agree, because we were mourning our sisters. But Niilo told us he had been saving and saving for years—even longer than we knew, ever since Leslie left Finland after Teppo died—and he had all the money we needed. Antti had been the mastermind, you might say, the one who was ultimately in charge, since he was the oldest of us. He agreed to Niilo's plan, but he warned Niilo that if it failed, he would personally end Niilo's life."

"I may yet do it," Antti muttered, glaring down at Niilo. "Had it not been for him, we wouldn't be in this predicament." He sighed heavily and looked up. "We flew here to Fantasy Island, bought last-minute charter-plane passes at the gate in the airport in Hawaii, and got onto the island without any trouble. We caught a bus to a fruit farm of some sort and sneaked into a vacant apartment there. Niilo picked the lock so that we could get in and use it as our base. On our second night here, he and Liisa walked to the hospital, broke into a basement window, and stole the hospital's entire supply of morphine and atropine. Niilo picked the lock on the cabinet where the drugs were stored. It took them the rest of the night to walk back to our hiding place."

"We thought to take all of you," Liisa admitted to Leslie. "So we found out where you live and sneaked around the house. Since the windows were all locked from the inside, Niilo couldn't pick those locks, and when he tried the front-door lock, it defied him for some reason. We had to abandon the effort."

Leslie nodded. "I saw your footprints in the flower bed, and there were flattened areas in the grass too. One of you had been messing around in our front yard."

"Niilo again," Liisa said, unaware of the murderous glare Niilo awarded her. "He was always the most determined of us all to exact revenge on you. When it became clear that most of the time none of you were at home, I suggested we change our plans. We decided not to touch you directly. We had often wished you dead, but we also wanted you to suffer, as we suffered from the loss of our father and Teppo. When Niilo and I stole the drugs from the hospital, we passed a doctor's office on our way out, and broke in to see if there were other drugs there that we could use. It was a pediatrician's office and there was nothing practical for our purposes, but I did see that your babies had an appointment in a few days. We decided that was the best time to attack."

"We hid and waited till Prince Christian was about to leave with the triplets, and then hijacked his car," Antti picked up the narrative. "We had him drive most of the way to our hideout, then we blindfolded him and brought him the remaining distance. Once we were inside, Liisa injected him with some of the stolen morphine to keep him subdued. Our ultimate goal was to kill the prince and leave the island with the babies."

"Why?" Leslie demanded.

Liisa said, "We planned to raise them in Finland. We were going to bring them up believing that they were Teppo's children—we felt all along that they should have been—and we were going to poison their minds against you as they grew up. In this way we hoped to make you suffer, through your grief over the prince's death and over the loss of your children. We thought one day to reveal to you what we had done to your triplets, that we had raised them to hate you as we did, and make you suffer all the more."

"You could never have gotten away with that," Roarke said, amazed. "The children are public figures just as much as their parents are, because they are royalty. The fact that they are triplets makes them unusual, thus difficult to conceal."

Antti nodded. "Yes, I think you're right, Mr. Roarke. But we were so determined, so consumed by our blindness and hatred and our mistaken view of Leslie's role in the deaths of _Isä_—our father—and Teppo, that we discounted that and told ourselves that we would find a way to make it work. We wanted to leave as little trace of our presence as possible in the apartment, so we left our shoes outside the door. It's the practice in the Scandinavian countries to take off one's shoes just inside the front door of one's home so that it's easier to keep floors and carpets clean and in good repair. It was a habit that turned out to be our downfall. The little girl next door took one of Liisa's shoes, and her mother made her bring it back. The mother had a friend who apparently recognized Niilo; he said that he could see the woman knew him somehow."

"My friend Maureen," Leslie said. "She saw the wedding portrait of me and Teppo that had been in storage since I married Christian, and when she saw Niilo she matched his facial features with Teppo's from the picture."

Liisa sighed. "It seems we were doomed to failure from the beginning, but we thought we could still succeed. I shot the full syringe of atropine into Prince Christian, mixed with some morphine as well…I thought that might react in some way with the atropine and raise the chances of his dying. Then we took the babies and tried to get to the charter plane, but it was too late."

"What will happen to us now?" Antti asked.

Roarke looked at Leslie, and she closed her eyes and shook her head. "It's too much for me right now," she said softly. "Christian's alive, Liisa, but his life is still in danger, and until I know whether he's going to make it, I can't process this." She looked at Liisa with pity. "I can't believe you're actually a nurse—a profession whose members are sworn to help people. You must be a really bad one, if you don't know how morphine and atropine would act together. You probably didn't even make note of how much you gave him."

Liisa only stared at her, and Antti said quietly, "Whatever you decide, Leslie, we will accept without protest. Teppo was correct: we deserve what we have coming."

"We'll confer with Mr. Roarke and Miss Leslie on that later on," the sheriff told them, "once we have final word on Prince Christian's condition. Is there anything else you need, sir, Miss Leslie?"

They both shook their heads. "I believe you have a full confession," Roarke said, "so we will leave you with the paperwork until late today or tomorrow. What happens to Christian will determine what happens to the Komainens."

‡ ‡ ‡

Late in the afternoon Leslie returned to the hospital, having fed the triplets and put them down for a nap in her old room. She had spent part of the morning calling her friends and updating them on the whole situation, along with Christian's condition; then she'd tried and mostly failed to eat lunch. Roarke had finally sent her on an errand, telling her that once she'd completed it she could go on to the hospital.

"He's not conscious right now, Miss Leslie, but if you want to sit with him, you can," a nurse offered kindly when she came in and asked about Christian. "He's still holding steady, and he's close to the crucial twenty-four-hour mark."

Leslie managed a hopeful smile at that and let the nurse lead her back to Christian's still-darkened room. He was still under an oxygen mask and hooked up to an IV, and Leslie could see another tube running out from under the covers. Frowning in perplexity at it, she skirted the bed and settled in the big white wicker chair nearby, reaching for his hand and wincing again at the amount of heat it was giving off. She traced experimental fingertips across his forehead, which was very dry and even hotter than his hand.

The nurse had been watching, and now Leslie turned to ask, "What's in the IV?"

"A hydration solution. At regular intervals we give him an injection of physostigmine," the nurse told her. "It helps to counteract the hallucinations. He's not convulsing anymore, but most of the symptoms will take at least another day to wear off, possibly longer for those affecting his brain."

"I see," Leslie murmured, peering at the bag of clear liquid that hung from the IV pole. It was about half full. "Well, thank you." The nurse nodded, smiled and left.

She focused on Christian, who seemed unnaturally still. She thought his breathing had eased somewhat, but it was hard to tell. The triplets, she knew from experience, would be asleep for a good two hours or more, so she was prepared to sit here for some time. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift, letting random recollections float through. They all seemed to be memories of moments in her marriage to Christian, and she wondered if there were something significant in that.

Leslie lost track of time and drifted along with her recollections; so when a finger twitched in her hand, she started hard, then sat up straight in the chair, eyes wide with hope. For a few seconds there was nothing; then Christian frowned slightly and his eyelids fluttered before slowly opening. His frown deepened; then he seemed to notice her and smiled under the oxygen mask. He murmured something, but it was muffled, and she leaned forward. "What was that, my love?"

This time she realized he was speaking _jordiska_, and she smiled ruefully. "Christian, could you speak English, please?" she asked.

He only responded in his own language again, and she gave up. "It's okay, my love, never mind," she said softly. "The important thing is that you get better. You've got to survive this. The triplets are fine. We got them back safe and they're at Father's house now, sleeping…" Leslie let her voice trail off when Christian lost focus and blinked, then made a weak comment in his own tongue. Her heart sank: apparently he was hallucinating again. She tried not to react, but she couldn't seem to stop the tears flooding her eyes. She closed them and hung her head, clutching his hand.

But he shifted in the bed and his hand tightened around hers, making her look up again. This time he was peering directly at her, squinting. "Leslie, is it you, my darling?" he croaked, muffled but distinct under the oxygen mask.

"Christian!" she breathed, lighting up, yet trying to suppress her wild surge of hope. "It's me, yes…how do you feel?"

"Did we go to hell?" he asked in all evident seriousness. "I'm baking."

Leslie giggled, feeling slightly hysterical. "It's the drug, my love," she said. "It gave you a fever, and all sorts of crazy symptoms."

"Ach…_herregud,"_ he muttered. "Get a doctor, my Rose, please. I have so many questions, I'm afraid I'll forget them all before I can ask them."

Laughing softly, Leslie squeezed his hand, got up and hurried to the door, sticking her head out and flagging down the first nurse she saw approaching. "Christian's awake," she said excitedly, "and he has questions."

The nurse grinned. "That's great news! Let's see what he wants to know."

Christian squinted again when Leslie and the nurse returned, and while Leslie took his hand again he asked, "What did my kidnappers inject me with? I can't see, the lights are painful, I'm hotter than the center of the earth, and my head has been full of some of the oddest dreams I've ever had in my life."

Leslie and the nurse grinned at each other, and the nurse explained, "You were given an overdose of a drug called atropine. It has certain medicinal purposes, including as an ingredient in eye drops that are used to dilate the pupils for optical exams, and also to relax the muscles of surgery patients just before they receive anesthesia."

"Ah," Christian murmured. "So what has it done to me, then?"

"A whole raft of things, I'm sorry to say, Your Highness," the nurse said apologetically to him. She proceeded to tick off on her fingers: "Dehydration, characterized by the thirst you feel, along with lack of perspiration; pupil dilation, causing your sensitivity to light; blurred vision; fever; difficulty or inability in speech and swallowing; muscle stiffness; rapid pulse; labored respiration; and in more severe cases, such as yours, convulsions and coma. About half of overdose patients hallucinate, and evidently you fall into that category, judging from your mention of strange dreams and from what Mr. Roarke told the doctor when you had just arrived here." She grinned widely at Christian's dazed look. "Some of the symptoms seem to have worn off already. You're able to speak and swallow, and it looks as if you don't have any trouble with stiff muscles. Most of the rest of it should be gone by tomorrow, but you may experience unsteady gait, lingering hallucinations and possibly disorientation a day or two beyond that. So we'll keep you in here at least through tomorrow night, and if things look good, Miss Leslie can come and pick you up on Sunday."

"_Ödet ta mej,"_ Christian mumbled, barely audible under the mask. Leslie snickered, for she had picked up the phrase from Christian's constant repetition of it; it meant "fate take me." "Of all those symptoms, only three have left me??"

"Those are just the obvious ones," the nurse said, pulling a stethoscope out of her pocket and peeling back the bedcovers enough to expose Christian's chest. He and Leslie both watched her listen to his pulse; he didn't wince when she applied the instrument, which told Leslie that he was probably grateful for any sensation of cold. "Your pulse rate sounds much more normal. Let me get Dr. Pierce in here and he'll check you out a little more thoroughly." She smiled. "Welcome back, Your Highness." With that, she left, and Christian and Leslie looked at each other, he still squinting, she with tears of relief in her eyes.

"They told me that if you survived the first twenty-four hours after injection, your chances of full recovery were very good," Leslie said, clutching his hand, "and it's been just a little more than that since I brought you in here."

"You, by yourself?" Christian asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well…mostly. It's a long story, but I did drive you over here, and you'd probably have given me hell for my excessive speeding, but I was afraid of losing you." She pressed his hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, dislodging the tears. "Christian, my love, will we always have to live this way?"

"What way?" he asked, but before she could explain, Dr. Pierce came in with the nurse behind him. Pierce paused by Christian's bedside and regarded the prince.

"It seems you beat someone's attempt to do you in, Your Highness," he observed. "Let me tell you, we're all very glad of that. For a while we were wondering, since last night you suffered convulsions on a couple of occasions, and your fever spiked at 107. We had the air conditioning going full blast in here, and there was a nurse watching you closely for several hours—wearing a sweater." They all laughed quietly. "You've been in and out of consciousness for the last twenty-five hours or so, and part of that is due to the physostigmine we've been administering to help with the hallucinations and give you a chance to rest."

Christian took this in for a moment, then made a noise of comprehension. "All right. My next question is, why am I sore in a particularly sensitive region of my anatomy?"

"We had to apply a urinary catheter," Dr. Pierce said. "Normal elimination is one way the body rids itself of atropine, but sometimes it needs help because of the muscle problems the stuff causes. If your muscles have recovered, as Nurse Penny here suggests they may have, we can remove that for you. Let's see what's happening here."

About ten minutes later Christian was freed of the oxygen mask and the catheter, and Dr. Pierce and the nurse departed to give him and Leslie a chance to be alone. Sitting up in bed and sipping from a paper cup of cold water, Christian swallowed slowly, clearly savoring not just the feel of the liquid in his throat, but the ability to get it down. After he'd downed about half the contents, he turned to Leslie. "I'm beginning to see you a little better now," he remarked. "All right then, so tell me what I missed."

"For one thing, the triplets are all safe and sound," Leslie said. "The police stopped the Komainens before they could take the babies off the island, and once you were here and under medical care, Father took me over to the police station to pick them up. They were a lot happier once I gave them baths and changed them and they had a chance to eat."

"I'm sure of that," chuckled Christian, "and it's very relieving to know that they're all unharmed. What was the Komainens' motive, anyway?"

"Revenge on me," said Leslie. "What it boiled down to was that they wanted me to suffer from loss, as they suffered after Teppo and their father died. Their plan was to poison you, then take the triplets back to Finland and raise them to believe that Teppo was their father, as well as teach them to hate me."

Christian looked incredulous. "Something's wrong with their reasoning. How could Teppo possibly have fathered the babies when he's been dead fourteen years?"

Leslie giggled and said, "Well, they're being held in the town jail, so maybe when we spring you from this place, you can go over there and ask them. Father and I went over this morning and got the whole story from them, and wait till you hear it." Christian sat and sipped the rest of his water while she told him all they had learned; when she got to the part in which Roarke had summoned the ghosts, he turned sharply to her and squinted at her in disbelief. Leslie, feeling it was better that he knew everything, told him about Teppo's little talk with her as well; when his expression changed, she paused, watching him anxiously.

Finally he said, "Perhaps it's as well I wasn't there. Ghost or not, I'm afraid I'd have found it very difficult to see him there with you."

"It doesn't matter, my love," Leslie said softly. "I just told him that I love you more than I had believed I was even capable of loving. I could tell he knew that included him, and he even admitted that I was better off with you."

That eyebrow went up again. "Ah," Christian mused. "In that case, I won't ask Mr. Roarke about exorcism after all." He smirked when Leslie dissolved into reluctant laughter, and reached over to squeeze her arm. "So, then, go on." She continued the narrative, and when she finished he gave a great sigh and shook his head. "Amazing."

"Terrifying was my word for it," Leslie muttered. "Antti and Liisa seemed repentant after they heard the truth from their father and Teppo, but Niilo was still hostile. Something tells me he's inherited his mother's mental illness, but that's his siblings' problem now."

"That it is," Christian said firmly. "And you, my Rose, are to worry only about Tobias, Karina and Susanna…and me."

"You think I _didn't_ worry about you? I could barely sleep last night for being scared stupid that you wouldn't make it through the night!" Leslie informed him indignantly. "If they'd let me, I never would have left your bedside! I'd have brought the triplets in here and recruited that nurse to help me feed them and…"

"Stop, stop!" Christian protested, raising his hands and laughing. "I get the picture, Leslie!" He reached out for her face, squinting, and she caught his hand and pressed his palm against her cheek while his laughter melted into a soft smile. "I truly believe you would have done exactly that. Ah, my Rose, I do love you…and I'm incredibly grateful that I'm still here to be able to say that to you."

"So am I," Leslie murmured thickly, and she half arose and leaned to him. He pulled her head gently forward and kissed her deeply.


	9. Chapter 9

§ § § -- October 3, 2004

Christian's hallucinations had receded into strange dreams, and his only other lingering symptom was a slightly unsteady gait; so Leslie held his arm for good measure as they crossed the porch and entered the main house. Roarke looked up from his desk and smiled broadly. "Welcome back, Christian!" he said, standing up and coming around to meet him. "It's extremely gratifying to see you as good as new."

"Well, nearly so," Christian remarked with a faintly rueful grin. "We were crossing the lane to come in here, and some passing native made a remark about what a shame it is that some people get drunk at such an early hour. Leslie gave him a quick tongue-lashing, and that settled his objections." They all laughed.

"Yeah," Leslie said with a grin, "I suggested he look into learning the fine art of tact. Anyway, we thought if you don't mind, Christian can stay here for the day and recuperate, and have the triplets for company, while you and I go on with the weekend's business."

"Of course," Roarke said. "As you can guess, Christian, it's been fairly busy, so I am afraid Leslie will have to check on one of the fantasies and then make rounds once she has made you comfortable. But I suspect she will be able to concentrate better on her job, now that she no longer has to worry over you."

Christian smiled and said teasingly, "Far be it from me to be the cause of Leslie's poor job performance. Frankly, I look forward to playing with the babies. Well, my darling, if you'll help me up the stairs…"

In Leslie's old room Christian braced himself on one of the posts holding up the canopy on the bed, then reached down and gently caressed the head of each sleeping triplet in turn. Leslie watched a little pensively, and her earlier question came back to her. "Are we always going to have to deal with these kinds of things?"

Christian looked up and regarded her curiously. "Are you asking if this is a permanent side effect of our royal status and the attention it's brought us?"

"I guess so," she murmured.

"Ah, my Rose," he said gently, "remember what Magga said—we can't live our lives being afraid of every stranger we see. I might remind you, too, that our attackers weren't strangers at all. I know you're not comfortable with the endless spotlight, but whatever we may wish, it's an inescapable part of our lives." He took in her expression and offered, "For what it's worth, you might keep in mind that this island is a sort of retreat. You told me once that you've always thought of it as your sanctuary. Now you can consider it so in another, additional way. If you're intimidated by the attention we'll be subjected to whenever we visit Lilla Jordsö, then you can take comfort in knowing that we'll soon be back here, where we can go on with our own lives, out of the limelight."

"You make a terrific point," Leslie said, mulling it over and smiling. "I'll remember that, my love." Christian smiled back, gathered her close and kissed her.

* * *

_Next: Word of a marriage proposal brings two friends to the island—each with her own fantasy. What will the future bring?_

_The 1981 "eruption of Mount Tutumoa" mentioned earlier in the story goes back to the November 21, 1981, episode "The Perfect Husband / Volcano", second story arc, with George Maharis and Misty Rowe._


End file.
